iGuess We're Roomies
by OneHorseShay
Summary: Tori Vega and the rest have just graduated from Hollywood Arts and are setting out to make it in the world. However, Tori gets an unexpected and accidental new roommate on while she's starting college along the way to stardom. Future Tori/Freddie, Established Bade, other pairings will be explored from iCarly, Victorious, and Sam & Cat.
1. Chapter 1

Hello everyone. I have a new story for you, but this is just the teasing first chapter. I don't plan on really getting started until sometime at the beginning of February, but I wanted to give you a preview for the upcoming year and celebrate.

iGuess We're Roomies

By OneHorseShay  
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. For God sakes, don't sue.  
Pairing(s): Future Tori/Freddie, Established Bade, other pairings will be explored within iCarly, Victorious, and Sam & Cat.  
Rating: T for now for any future Language, Adult Content/Themes and/or Violence; reserve the right to up rating.  
Summary: Tori Vega and the rest have just graduated from Hollywood Arts and are setting out to make it in the world. However, Tori gets an unexpected and accidental new roommate on while she's starting college along the way to stardom.

* * *

Chapter 1

Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA  
Saturday, September 17, 2012

Victoria 'Tori' Vega blew out a tired breath past her smiling lips as she sat a group picture of all her friends on the nightstand by her bed, the last item to put in its proper place after being unpacked in her new university apartment at the University of California at Los Angeles.

She brushed her fingertips over the top of the frame as she gave the picture one last glance then turned to head out of her bedroom. She blew out another breath as she stepped into the living room and headed over to flop down on the couch to take a moment to relax. She crossed her jean covered legs and grasped her sock cover feet while taking a few relaxing breaths. It had been a long and grueling day moving in and unpacking all her things into the apartment off the campus of UCLA, but she was quite happy and ready to relax for the rest of the late afternoon and evening.

Fortunately, she had dressed down for the day in her Hollywood Arts red and grey baseball t-shirt, a red bandana to hold her hair back and her glasses, to feel comfortable during the move and unpacking, so she could just relax without having to worry about changing.

With that worry out of the way, she let her thoughts drift as she didn't want to think about anything in particular or worry about the stresses of school starting later in the week, but her mind eventually drifted on one potential problem to being on her own in the apartment: her potential roommate. She didn't even know who her roommate would be as the school had such a time in scrambling for housing for the overflow of new incoming freshmen they had been behind in letting people know who their roommates would be for the fall quarter.

She hoped that her roommate would be pleasant and not be a constant fight or be the cause of some unnecessary friction. However, living with Trina for the last eighteen years made her think she was prepared for anybody… even if it had been Jade (which she definitely knew wasn't going to be).

The brunette was pulled out of her thoughts at hearing the lock to the door to the apartment unlock. She quickly looked towards the door in obvious curiosity on who could be entering. She wasn't expecting maintenance, so the only one it could be was her roommate arriving. She took a quick breath and jumped up from her seat to reach the door to try to make her first impression be a good one for the girl she expected to be rooming with for at least the quarter.

She put on a bright and welcoming smile as the door opened. Her friendly disposition immediately turned into one of surprise at seeing who was stepping through with a book bag, a suitcase in the left hand and dragging an upright rolling luggage case while gripping the keys.

Tori called out with mild disbelief, "Freddie?"

The brown eyed web-celebrity teenager from Seattle looked up and put on an equally surprised expression at seeing the recent Hollywood Arts graduate. "Tori?" He let out a cheerful laugh as he took a good look at her, "Tori?" He set his rolling luggage upright and sat down his suitcase beside him as he instinctively moved towards her with her doing the same.

The singer let out a surprised laugh of her own and quickly pulled the muscular teenager into a hug. She whispered into his left ear, "It's great to see you."

He wrapped his arms around her and easily lifted the slim girl off of her feet and he answered, "You too." He sat her back down on her feet and pulled away from her to take a moment looked her up and down then commented, "You look great; how have you been?"

"Busy," she let out a tired laugh.

He joined in her laughter and replied, "Tell me about it."

She looked him up and down and saw that he looked pretty good as well to her eyes as she saw that he was a little taller and little more muscular than the last time she had seen him in person during his visit down to see her directorial debut and Trina's unfortunate accident with the gimbals. She had of course had also seen him on nearly a weekly basis on iCarly (occasionally missing a show for some Friday night event at Hollywood Arts), but seeing him in person was a little different.

She continued to beam him a smile as she asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh?" He nodded into the apartment and casually answered with a bit of pride at the end of his statement, "I'm moving in, this is my apartment for the quartet." He cracked a smile as he finished, "What are _you_ doing here? Not that I'm complaining with seeing a familiar and friendly face."

Tori patted him on the shoulder and let out another soft laugh, "You're going to UCLA too?" She softly rolled her eyes and laughed out at the absurdity of her own question, "Of course you're going to UCLA; you wouldn't be here if you weren't."

Freddie smiled at her bit of silliness and let her finish, "But that's a good one about this being your apartment because this is _my_ apartment."

Freddie gave her a soft smile, "Oh? This is _your_ apartment?"

She smiled along with him as she playfully answered, "Yeah, my apartment."

The former tech-producer raised a curious eyebrow then looked at his key still in his hand and commented, "I guess then we're neighbors and they gave me the wrong key? It was pretty busy down there with them handing out keys, so they grabbed the one next to it to give me and gave your roommate my key."

"I guess so, but that's great—we're neighbors; this'll be great."

He nodded along as his face reflected her joy of the serendipitous happenstance of encountering one another and finding out that they would be neighbors.

"I'm all settled, so let's go find your apartment."

He let out a soft laugh at her offer, "Okay." He turned and looked to the number on her apartment door and his brow knotted at seeing the number and mumbled out, "Wait a second, but this _is_ my number." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his PearPhone. He tapped the screen with his thumb. A moment later a PDF copy of his information on the apartment and he quickly rechecked the number on the form.

He slightly smirked with confusion as he held up his phone to show the lovely brunette. "Three sixteen, right there."

Tori gently grasped over his fingers and touched the edge of the phone to steady it as she read the text. She looked back to him with a perplex expression on her face. "Okay, this has to be some kind of weird mix up."

He playfully questioned her with a charming smile, "Are you sure _you're_ in the right room?"

"Ha, ha, very funny," she playfully mocked with a role of her eyes. She turned and headed back to her bedroom while calling out over her shoulder, "I got my room assignment right here."

Freddie snorted out a laugh as he closed the door behind him and followed her. He stopped right at the threshold of her bedroom and watched for a moment as she went through a three-ring binder resting on her desk next to her PearBook. After flipping a few pages, Tori shouted, "Ha! Found it." She opened the clips to the binder and pulled the paper out. She walked back over to him and smugly held the paper in front of him. "See _my_ apartment."

He laughed out and held out his phone in front of her face. "My apartment too."

"Hey, the phone bit is mine," she retorted with mock anger.

"What?" he quickly retorted with a knotted brow.

Tori shook her head the memory of waving her phone in Jade's face years ago when she wanted to try out for the fake ping-pong team and the pale brunette refused to even let her try. "Never mind, but this can't be right; they couldn't have purposely assigned us together."

"Unless we got married and no told either of us?"

She raised a questioning eyebrow.

Any other time he would probably put on an embarrassing smile and back off as he did when he made a joke too soon when she found out with Carly that they had been dating the same guy, but in this case he decided to continue, "I mean these apartments are usually reserved for married couples besides the transfer and graduate students, so…"

He kept on his boyish grin which broke down what little outrage she had actually felt from the statement. She retorted with a playful smile, "I think I would have remembered us getting married."

"Unless it was in Vegas? And you know what happens in Vegas…"

She just smirked and shook her head while she crossed her arms under her chest. "Getting married wouldn't have stayed in Vegas," she playfully countered.

He let out a soft chuckle and bowed his head.

"Anyway, I guess we have to check with the management and see what the goof up was and get this straightened out."

"'kay…" Freddie trailed off and his smile slid off of his face. He cleared his throat and averted his eyes away from the singer which Tori immediately caught.

Her concern immediately slipped into her voice, "What?"

He barely tilted his head up so he could meet his eyes then cautiously responded, "Until we figure out what's going on, do you mind if I at least bring my stuff in here? I don't trust people not to break into my rental or my mini-trailer."

She cracked a smile. "Of course not. You should have heard the lecture my dad gave me about watching out for people. I'll help bring your stuff up."

Freddie raised a hand. "Tori, you look exhausted."

She really didn't want to argue with him because she did feel exhausted, but she felt she couldn't stay silent in wanting to help. "I'll carry the small stuff…" She playfully pinched his left bicep. "You can do all the heavy lifting muscle man."

He cracked a smile at her playful joke. "Okay."

* * *

Freddie had surprisingly packed light for a major move with only a few boxes that he carried up by himself over Tori's objection. She insisted that they still divide up the work, so he had just haphazardly sat boxes in the living room and Tori had pushed them out of the way to keep the walkway clear for the room and to the rest of the apartment. After less than a half hour of moving the few boxes into the apartment, the pair was on their way to the apartment management office.

Tori led as they entered the office and made their way to the receptionist desk to see a young man (not much older than apparently Freddie) typing at the desk computer. The residential style reception area was nearly clear of people from the earlier hustle and bustle of students Freddie had encountered earlier when picking up his key. She put on a bright smile as she politely began, "Excuse me, hi, could you help us?"

The young man looked up and immediately smiled to the lovely teenager. He quickly answered with a bit of flirtation in his voice, "Yes, how can I help you?"

"Yeah… there's been a little mix up with our room assignments," she began and quickly pointed between herself and Freddie.

The receptionist politely answered while trying to hide his surprise at saying that they could have been mixed up, "Okay, how so?"

"We've been assigned the same apartment."

He knotted his brow as he looked between the pair. Tori handed her copy of her room assignment while Freddie held up his phone as she continued, "We have the same room listed for our room assignment."

He passed a quick glance over both their assignments then looked back to his computer. "Okay, give me one second to double check our records…" A few seconds later he brought up the proper database and continued, "Yeah, I have it right here: Tori Vega assigned to room three sixteen along with Fredward Benson. I'm not sure what's the problem, there hasn't been a mix up."

The brunette blew out a breath and patted the counter with the palm of her right hand in frustration. "_I'm_ Tori Vega."

The receptionist gave her a questioning expression.

Tori blew out a breath and quickly reached into her jean pocket then pulled out her wallet so she could show him her driver's license.

He glanced to it then back up to the lovely brunette. "This says Victoria."

She blew out a breath and gave him a patient expression. "I go by Tori for short."

He held out his hand and asked, "May I?"

She gave him a slight nod of her head and handed him her wallet. He looked back to his screen and held the driver's license to compare information. His eyes widened and whispered out, "Oh?"

"Oh?" the pair questioned at the same time.

The secretary gave an embarrassing expression as he handed her wallet back to her. "I see what happened. On the application, the first name is Tori and the gender box was left unchecked. I guess whoever was assigning the rooms in that section thought you were a guy."

Tori palmed her forehead with her right hand and blew out a breath. She looked to Freddie with an apologetic expression and muttered out shamefully, "Oh my God… I was in a hurry and I just wrote Tori out of habit instead of writing out Victoria."

Freddie gave her a sympathetic expression as he tried to reassure her, "It's okay Tori."

She dropped her head and looked to him with an exhausted expression, "No it's not. I goofed up and now _you_ don't have a room or…" She turned her head to look back to the receptionist. "Which one of us was assigned to the room first?"

He passed a quick glance at the computer then answered, "You were."

She looked back to the handsome Seattle native and muttered out with a regretful tone, "See, my fault—"

Freddie raised a reassuring hand on her upper right arm and whispered, "It's fine Tori…"

Tori looked up to meet his compassionate eyes. They and his soft touch were a relieving gesture for her guilt, but she wouldn't let him completely dissuade her remorse for her screw up.

Freddie turned to look to the receptionist and asked, "Anyway, is there any other room you could move me to?"

He gave them a lost expression. "There are no other apartments… that's why incoming freshmen are even allowed to here since they admitted too many this year. We're really swamped with housing, so it's not like there would be anyone to swap with because there aren't any other roommates in this situation."

Freddie continued to question, "Are there any of the larger apartments short a male roommate?"

The receptionist looked back to the computer to pull up another database then quickly answered, "No, all are booked up."

"What are we suppose to do?"

"At the moment, I'm not sure what you can do other than staying put… or not. We can't have you stay together; those are for married students and co-habitation is against policy for the moment. They're working on it for the gay, lesbian and transgender students, but we might be able to get you a waiver due to the circumstances if one of you were…"

Tori quickly interrupted, "We're both heterosexual." She quickly looked to Freddie for a quick confirmation after the fact. He laughed out loud and softly shook his head. "Yes Tori, I still like girls." She shook her head and continued, "Can we get that waiver anyway for the next few days until we can figure out how we can resolve this?"

Freddie put on a confused expression as he questioned, "Tori, we can't stay together. I'll see if I can get a hotel roo—"

Tori raised a hand to stop his objection. "No, you can't spend your money on my goof up. I'm not kicking you out. We have separate rooms; it'll be fine, just like when you stayed over at my house last year."

He softly laughed and was touched by the gesture but he continued to be insistent on the matter, "Tori, I'll get a place closer and just commute."

"Do you have a car?"

He bowed his head slightly, "No, just the rental which is up in a few days. I was going to go car hunting later in the week before classes started."

"Then just stay the night and we'll figure out something tomorrow or Monday. My parents should be back from New York by then and my dad will figure out what we can do."

He slightly frowned and raised an eyebrow as he questioned, "He's not here? Your parents didn't help you move in?"

"My parents are in New York. Trina is going to NYU… my dad was serious in hoping that Trina would go to a university far, far away."

The former tech-producer let out a soft chuckle at the statement.

Tori looked back to the receptionist that had remained quiet throughout the exchange. "Is there anyone that we can talk to that can do that for us?"

He gave them a polite smile and nod of his head. "I'll talk to the manager. You'll have to give me a few minutes." He got up from his seat and headed to one of the small offices.

Tori turned and beamed Freddie a smile, but the Seattle native didn't share the feeling of accomplishment.

A few minutes later and two signatures later, Tori held up her copy of a waiver form with a smile playing on her face towards Freddie while the tech-producer looked back with an apprehensive expression. She slightly frowned and gave him a puppy dog expression in an attempt to wear him down which succeeded a few moments later as he realized that she needed to do something to make it up to him in thinking she wronged him.

His next words instantly put a smile back on the lovely brunette's face and earned him an excited hug, "I guess we're roomies."

* * *

Author's Note: I hope everyone enjoyed this first chapter and that you'll come back to read more when I start in February. Also, I'm assuming that all the episodes after 'A Christmas Tori' takes place between Christmas and their graduation in June as that Christmas was in their senior year. Also, I'm making some assumptions about the characters not addressed in the show, such as Tori's faith. Don't be shy with the reviews. Thanks again, OneHorseShay.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: Hello my dear readers. I hope you're feeling better than I am. I'm going to try to update on a weekly basis, but no promises. I wanted to update some other things too tonight/today, but I am NOT feeling good and that has put a hamper on writing for the last few days. In the meantime, if you're looking for some Jade/Freddie until I get the next chapter of A Coffee and a Smoothie up, look to PD31's story: Kindred Spirits. He's updated it tonight.

Thank you for reading and reviewing:

Twilight Warrior 627: It has to do with policy changes as we speak about limited housing for them. I'm not making any political or cultural judgments, I'm just pointing out the real life situation UCLA is facing at the moment.

Challenge King: Thanks. I hope I don't let you down.

ArtisticAngel6: I hope you enjoy this new chapter.

Boris Yeltsin: I'm glad and hope you'll enjoy the story.

darck ben: I'm hoping it is a good story and I may take you up on that offer.

PD31: I found it a unique way to get them 'together' for the moment.

Jeremy Shane: I always assumed Trina was there because she wanted a full four years of education there as she probably didn't do her freshman year at HA, but at Sherwood High School. I think it is Sherwood Tori went to before HA.

Fanfic-Reader-88: I'm going to address how tightly they became in the story, maybe a little in this chapter.

The rooming thing is just a policy at UCLA and that is why in real life they are reexamining it so that say gays and lesbians can share a room to avoid the awkwardness of rooming with heterosexuals. I'm just fitting real life circumstances for a story.

That's an interesting idea for them to be fraternal twins, but then Trina complained with having to work with André, a tenth grader, before the showcase in Pilot. If she was in tenth grade too, why would she complain?

Agent-M-0167: It is isn't it? I'd like to add some more comedy for my usually serious leaning stories.

Protege16: Thanks. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Now on with the story.

Rating: T

* * *

Chapter 2

Apartment 316  
Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA  
Saturday, September 17, 2012

Tori was the first one through the door, nearly skipping inside as the guilt she felt for messing up Freddie's room assignment was taken off her shoulders, albeit temporarily, but even that didn't concern her since she knew everything would be straightened out in a few days.

However, her new roommate was not nearly as thrilled as he followed behind her wearing a weary expression. He pushed the door closed behind him and looked to the back of the elated brunette as he commented, "I'm still not thrilled with this."

Tori's shoulders slumped as he had just burst her bubble. She turned around and dropped her hands to her sides as she answered with a pitiful tone, "I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have messed up your room assignment—"

He gave her a reassuring smile as he raised his hands up to show he didn't want to argue with her, "You didn't mess up anything. I don't usually write out Fredward, so I understand about writing a name shorthand." He took a step closer and put on his charming smile as he finished, "Look at it this way: if you would have written your name out, I'd still out of luck for a room, so it doesn't matter. Don't feel guilty about anything."

"But you're still upset," she pointedly countered with a confident smirk.

His shoulders were the ones that slumped this time as he glanced downward which would be down directly at her chest and immediately noticed how well the old Hollywood Arts Baseball-T outlined her chest. He immediately shot his eyes back up to meet her soft brown eyes and stuttered for a moment before spitting out, "Look, I'm just… uncomfortable with the situation because… you're a girl and I'm a guy… and I was raised a certain way and if mother found out that my roommate was not a guy, even temporarily… she'd probably have an aneurysm."

She let out a soft laugh and rested a hand on his muscular bicep. She gave him a reassuring and understanding smile as she countered, "My dad raised me and Trina Catholic, so I understand that concern."

Freddie rolled his eyes and muttered out with a hint of dread in his voice, "Oh, that would really make her feel better."

Tori's brow knotted and frowned almost in the form of a pout as her hand dropped away from his arm.

He blew out a tired breath and quickly explained, "My mother unfortunately has a—" he raised up his right pointer finger and thumb close together, "—tiny bit of anti-Catholic bias."

Tori glanced away somewhat embarrassed and crossed her arms underneath her chest.

He gently raised a hand to cup her right elbow and whispered, "One which I don't share."

She playfully smirked back, "I wouldn't think you would."

They shared a soft laugh for a few moments before Tori eagerly picked up and idly rolled her hands in front of him, "But this is different; we're not co-habituating, we're just crashing for the night or maybe two nights—like when you spent the weekend with us last year."

"That's was different Tori; your sister and your parents were home—"

She gently rested her hands on his shoulders and insistently pointed out, "But we have separate rooms and bathrooms just like last time; we're adults now and we can handle anything that comes up for a day or two, it's going to be fine."

Her points may have not completely dissuade his apprehension, but it was enough for him to nod his head and give her a soft smile to let her know he wasn't going to bring it up anymore. Tori's eyes lit up and her soft smile brightened into a full grin as she dropped her hands away from his shoulders.

He commented with a dry tone, "There's no point in unpacking; I'm out of here by Monday at the latest. I just need the essentials out for the next night or so… I guess we can just relax or is there any unpacking I can help you with?"

She softly laughed out, "Nope, I'm done unpacking everything before you got here."

A knock from the door interrupted caught the pair's attention and Tori throw Freddie a knotted brow confused expression. She walked over to the door and took a quick look through the peephole then over her shoulder to Freddie. "It looks like a store delivery man."

She called out, "Who is it?"

The middle age man called back out from the other side of the door, "Delivery from Wanko's Warehouse to a Miss Tori Vega."

She glanced back over her shoulder to Freddie then cautiously opened the door.

The store delivery man smiled as he held a thin rectangular box on a hand truck. "I have a delivery for Miss Vega?"

She cautiously answered, "I'm Miss Vega?"

He politely asked, "Could I see some ID?"

She pulled out her wallet to oblige him and show him her ID.

He smiled in return and held pulled an electronic PAD and pen from his belt and handed it over the box for her to sign and asked, "Just sign here."

She followed his instruction then handed the PAD back to him. He motioned inside and asked, "If I may?"

He rolled it inside while Freddie kept a weary eye on him. He quickly unloaded the box onto the floor than handed her an envelope. "Have a nice day ma'am," he bid farewell with a tug at the end of the brim of his baseball cap. He turned to depart with the hand truck and Tori closed the door behind him.

Tori opened up the envelope and pulled out a small piece of paper. She read over it out loud, "A little apartment warming gift, love Dad."

She looked up to see Freddie examining the brown cardboard box. He casually commented, "Just a wild guess, but I think your dad got you a TV, a pretty nice sized one too."

Tori let out a soft laugh as she walked to stand on the opposite side of box, "I guess so. I need to go home and get my Wii."

Freddie brightened up as he looked up from looking at the box. "Oh? You're a video game girl?"

She smirked as she playfully answered, "I enjoy my occasional game."

He nodded along. "I can't do anything about the Wii at the moment, but if you want to wait a little while, I could go out and get us something to eat then we can set it up. I haven't eaten since the flight and I'm getting hungry. What do you want me to get you?"

She playfully waved him off, "You don't have to buy me food."

He gave her his boyish smirk as they both knew he was kidding, "I'm not."

She gave him a coy smile in return as she answered, "Surprise me."

Freddie smirked and nodded his head then turned to head out of the door.

"And while you do that, I'm going to call my dad," she playfully informed him and pulled out her PearPhone and dialed her father's number.

"Say hi to him for me," he answered back as he opened the door.

She smiled and nodded her head with the phone pressed to the side of her head as he passed through the door and pulled it close behind him. Tori beamed as the other end of the phone picked up. "Hi dad." She smiled as he instantly went on in concern about her. "Yeah, I'm doing fine, but—"

She was quickly interrupted with his concern over the other end of the line. "No, I'm fine; it's just my roommate—"

She rolled her eyes as he started on about how it would take time to adjust living with a new person, but she cut him off before he really could get into his lecture, "It's not about getting along; it's who they gave me. There was a mix up in the room assignments and they thought I was a guy, so they gave me a male roommate." She pulled her phone away from her ear as her father raised his voice in alarm. She cautiously brought her ear back to her phone and continued a few moments later after her father finished speaking.

"I'm not kicking him out, he's Freddie, Freddie Benson, from iCarly… yes, the same Freddie… one that you let spend the weekend with us last year so he could come down and see my play. The weekend Trina was drugged up from the fall."

Her father paused at the other end of the phone and gave her a chance to continue, "It's my fault. When I was writing out the room application I wrote Tori instead of Victoria and missed checking the gender box. Whoever did the room assignments thought I was a guy, so they paired us up."

Mister Vega started again, but Tori forcefully interrupted, "I can't kick him out and make him pay for a hotel room. If I hadn't rushed filling out the application then he might have a room now. I can't do that to him. It'll be alright for a few days until you and mom get back to figure out—wait, you and mom are going to stay in New York for the rest of the week?"

She patiently waited as she heard his explanation as to why they wouldn't be back on Monday. "Okay, that's fine. I'd want to sightsee too if I was there. We can do a week—it won't be a problem with him staying that long. When you get back they'll probably find an opening for him and they haven't, I know you can figure something out."

The brunette blew out a soft breath as she listened to her father caution her about having a teenage boy under the same roof on a practical level as even he seemed to realize any kind of lecture about Freddie possibly doing anything unsavory towards her during his stay would be met with an argument from his youngest daughter. "Okay, I understand. We'll make it work… I love you too Dad, tell Mom and Trina I love them." She pulled the phone from her ear and tapped the end call button on the screen. She let out a soft breath and wore a soft smile as at least for the moment, everything was settled and was going to be alright… until Freddie got back and she had to tell him that he might be here for the rest of the week.

About half an hour later, Freddie walked back inside with a pizza box in hand and napkins resting on top. "I hope you like the pizza. I was hoping I remembered the toppings you like on your pizza." He closed the door behind him and locked it then sat the box on the small provided dinning room table next to the kitchen area. She opened the box and quickly pulled out a slice then took a bite. She smiled at him as he had remembered what she liked on her pizza.

"Did you get to stock up the fridge?"

Tori was in mid-chew, so she nodded her head and motioned to a cabinet with a finger. He got the message and walked over to the neighboring cabinet. He pulled out two colorful plastic cups to sit on the counter then went into the refrigerator. He found a two liter bottle of Classic Joke-a-Cola and pulled it out. He held it up for her to see to make sure it was alright to open it. After licking her fingers, Tori raised a thumb and he poured the pair a drink.

Freddie quickly put it up and then turned back towards the table and sat a drink in front of her. He grabbed a napkin and took a slice of pizza then took a seat across from her. The pair smiled towards one another as they enjoyed their respective slices.

After he finished his first slice, he casually asked, "So, how did your talk with your dad go?"

The lovely brunette wiped off her lips with a napkin and gave him an apprehensive expression.

He smirked at her and provided her the answer, "He wants me out, right?"

She quickly shook her head, but she was still hesitant in verbally answering him, "No… he's not thrilled, but he knows you're a good guy, so it's alright."

He slightly bowed his head and coyly asked with a soft tone, "So why do you look so worried?"

She looked down at the table and softly bit her bottom lip.

"Tori?" he asked with clear concern on his part.

She lifted her head just enough to lift her eyes to meet his and whispered out with a mouse like tone, "My mom and dad aren't going to be back until the end of the week."

Freddie blew out a breath and palmed his forehead with his elbow on the table supporting his head.

Tori's shoulders slumped and frowned at seeing his reaction. She whispered with a strange mix of regret hurt, "Freddie?"

Freddie raised his hands and quickly tried to dissuade her from getting upset, "Okay… a week. We can handle a week. Separate rooms and all that like you pointed out earlier and they could find a room before then. It's good, we're good."

A smile instantly lit up on Tori's face and Freddie would have to be blind not to see that her mood had turned completely around. Fortunately, Freddie wasn't emotionally blind and realized that he wasn't going to bring up that matter again to upset her.

He pulled another slice of pizza from the box and decided to switch to hopefully a more pleasant topic, "So where is everyone else? Are they going here too?"

Tori sipped from her colorful plastic cup then happily answered, "Jade's going part-time; she got some acting roles right after graduation, so she's taking a balanced approach to her career and school and Beck's doing the same thing. Cat's going to be part-time too, but she got an apartment somewhere. I've been meaning to drop by and meet her roommate. She was very cryptic about it who it is, but she said that I would know her when I saw her. I'm kind of curious about who it could be."

He let out a soft laugh then asked with a hopeful expression, "Well that should be an interesting surprise, but I'll get to see'em around?"

She nodded her head as her mouth was full with pizza. She quickly chewed that morsel so she could continue, "We're actually got together and made sure we could line up some of our classes the best we could with our schedules."

"What about the rest?"

"André got a record deal with RPX records, so he's busy working on an album, but since he's still in the city, he'll be around. I'm not sure about Robbie. I haven't heard what's going on with him."

"That's great. I'm glad they're doing great and can't wait to see them."

"It'll be good. We're going to stick together… at least for a while. I'll admit I don't want to let them go just because we might be going in different directions." Tori took a quick sip from her soda then asked, "How's Carly and Sam? Are they coming down for school too?"

Freddie put on a regretful expression then answered with a solemn tone, "No, Carly went to Italy to stay with her dad a few weeks before graduation—he's in the Air Force—and over the summer decided that she wanted to stay to go to college. A few weeks later Sam just took off saying she was going and probably wasn't coming back. I didn't have a real reason to stay after that, so I decided to try someplace different." He let out a soft laugh and shrugged a shoulder, "I got tired of the rain."

Tori didn't bother to hide her concern on her face as she questioned, "Have you thought about trying to find Sam? She is your friend and ex after all."

He bowed his head slightly to look at the table. "I've had the summer to do a lot of reflecting on my life so far and I've been doing a lot of reevaluating the definition of what friend really means… she didn't have the courtesy to let me know where she's going, so I'm not going to worry about her anymore… how much she's ever cared about me is up for debate. I really think now that with Carly gone, we didn't have to bother keeping up the pretenses of a friendship, so she didn't see the need to stay." Freddie shrugged a shoulder. "I guess I just had to start over."

Tori nodded her head. "I'm sorry."

He forced a smile and commented, "It's college, so a fresh start."

"And you'll have us," she tried to reassure him.

Freddie looked down at pizza held just above the table in his napkin.

Tori knotted her brow. "Freddie?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

He looked up to meet her caring eyes and answered with an apologetic tone, "That I really didn't keep in touch with you or the others… I don't really have any excuse for it and I know I lost out on a chance to make some really good friends between then and now—"

She quickly interrupted, "But like you said, we all have a fresh start… let's not let what we did or failed to do bring us down. We've graduated and we're on our own and this is the time to make our dreams come true."

It was Freddie's turn to smile as she cheered him up. "Okay… that sounds like a very good idea."

Tori returned his smile and held up her cup and he took the hint for them to tap cups then drunk for new beginnings.

He softly laughed out, "Let me just finish eating then I can hook up your TV. It's probably a straight forward hookup, but I'm told I'm pretty good with technical stuff."

The brunette laughed at the lame joke then continued eating in pleasant company with her friend (and roommate) from Seattle.

* * *

The time was getting late as Tori was wrapping up reading a section in one of her textbooks to get ahead for class while curled up on the couch. She had turned off the TV an hour ago or so and changed into some night clothes with a fitting old T-shirt and short pajama shorts while Freddie had retired to his room.

She was on the last paragraph of her text when she heard the soft patter of feet on the living room carpet. Her brow lifted up in surprise when she saw Freddie walk back to the living room wore an old T-shirt that hugged tightly his muscular chest and biceps.

He smiled to her and called out, "Hey?"

Tori had to take a moment and clear her throat before answering with an awkward tone, "Hey. What's up?"

"I was about to head to bed and I wanted to give you something."

"Oh?"

He walked over to the couch and held up his set of apartment keys to her with an awkward smile.

She gave him a confused expression.

He patiently smiled to her as he explained, "If I'm going to stay the night… for the week, you should keep the keys… and make sure your door is locked."

She dismissively laughed as she gave him a playful expression with her eyes, "You're not going to slip into my room."

Freddie gave her a soft smile. "Thanks for the trust, but… just for appearance's sake?" He gave her a puppy dog expression which she saw was his blatant attempt for her to go along with his suggestion.

She blew out a breath and reluctantly took the keys from him which instantly brought a smile to his face.

"How do you know I won't slip into _your_ room?"

Freddie smirked and whispered with an enticing tone, "I don't."

The pair shared playful stares then at the same time let out a surprising laughs.

Tori held the back of her hand to her mouth to help her calm herself then looked back to the former tech-producer. She stood up while closing her book and announced, "I was actually about to head to bed myself, so I guess it's a good thing you caught me or you would have had to slip into my room to give me the keys so you couldn't slip into my room."

Freddie chuckled and bowed his head at the point. "Good night Tori."

She lifted just the corner of her mouth and spoke barely over a whisper, "Good night Freddie." She turned and headed for her bedroom while Freddie caught himself staring at her rear in her short pajamas shorts then turned his eyes away in shame. He cleared his throat and shook his head then headed for his own bedroom for the night.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Remember to catch the final episode of Victorious, Victor-Yes this Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 8 PM on Nick.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello dear readers. I'm sorry for the lateness of this update as I was shooting for a last Friday update, but it didn't work out. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Boris Yeltsin: I'm just playing up the negative stereo type Dan use with her. I pray to God that people aren't making any judgments on Christianity from her behavior on the show in regards to Freddie.

Challenge King: Well, I hope you like this chapter with the buildup starting for the pair.

Fanfic-Reader-88: Real dads would have their concerns and Mrs. Benson would flip. She freaked out one time when he was about to say 'Oh my God' as if he was taking the Lord's name in vain. She'd go nuts with co-habitation.

I don't know if he would stay or not if they were still their after the series ended. Dan had Freddie pretty much whipped by the girls at that point or he would have cut them out of his life a long time ago with their behavior during the last two/three season (Nick had a strange way of dividing season up, but I mean from the beginning of the 'Seddie Arc'.)

darck ben: She would have had to tell him one way or the other at some point even if she wanted Freddie to stay permanently with her.

SouthernB3lle: It's like Freddie and Shelby, but without the professional fighting. It's a different version of boy/girl next door vibe between them to play with.

Agent-M-0167: Well Dan always artificially shortchanged Freddie in the ladies department to somehow for the audience to believe that he was still that thirteen year old from Season 1, but obviously failed miserably as the audience just couldn't buy it. He's out of Seattle now and in a place where people won't be artificially thinking he's not a ladies man.

green aura: One of the things I'm going to be exploring is how much _do_ they really know each other and the rest of the two casts. If you actually watch the crossover, there's very little interaction between them. Yes, there is Spencer/Jade/Beck bonding and Tori with the Trio, but if you really look at it, there is no canon proof to show that Freddie or Sam even KNOW Jade, Cat, Beck or Robbies NAMES least long all buddy buddy at the end of the episode (they were just all breaking character at that point). In 'Who Did it to Trina?', Nathan isn't even credited as being Freddie other than a Slap entry by Lane and that is dubious canon (I'm using it anyway though). It's another reason why Sam and Cat as a show is going to be interesting just to see how they interact in the Pilot.

Lebensender: We'll see, we'll see.

Okay, on with the story.

Rating: T

* * *

Chapter 3

The morning light filtered through the blinds of the apartment bedroom and softly touched and warmed the mix Caucasian and Latino teenager's skin of her face and left bare arm. The light touch of the sun's rays over her eyelids and face caused the lovely girl to stir from her sleep. She squinted her eyes tightly shut and buried her face into her pillow in an effort to ward of the coming day that disturb her peaceful sleep and regret in forgetting to close her blinds last night.

After a few minutes of futile effort to go back to sleep, she rolled on to her bed and stretched out her arms and legs across the bed with a cute little whimper escaping past her lips. A moment later, the brunette yawned and stretched her arms up above her head with the hem of her shirt pulling up her toned abdomen. She smacked her lips several times as she threw the covers off her leg and slipped out of the queen size bed.

She scratched the side of her head with her right hand and tried to wipe the sleep out of an eye with the other as she exited her bedroom. She immediately stopped in her tracks when she opened her eyes to see that Freddie in the common area between the front door, dinning room table and living room was on the floor in the process of rapidly doing pushups.

He had changed from his sleepwear into a white athletic shirt and blue athletic shorts for what looked to her as an impromptu workout session. She cleared her throat at seeing his exertion of his exercise as she could easily see the beads of sweat on his forehead and his arms.

Apparently the sound of clearing her throat caught his attention as he stopped after pushing upward and looked to her with a humorous smile. He stood up and her mind flashed back to months ago about how muscular Beck's friend from Canada, Moose, was under his shirts, but realized that this view was a far better one since the white athletic shirt showed off his muscular arms and fit nicely over his chest.

He reached over to a towel hanging on the back of one of the dinning room table chairs and wiped his brow. He looked to her with a smile and warmly greeted her, "Morning."

Her mouth opened up and closed almost comically like a fish then finally muttered out, "Morning… working out?"

He snorted out a soft laugh at her questioning the obvious, "Yeah, just a little until I can hit the school's gym. I'm sorry; I hope I didn't wake you up."

She shook her head. "No, the sun did that all on its own." She took a step closer to him and playfully pinched his muscular bicep, "I didn't realize you were so into working out."

He maintained his boyish smile as he shrugged one of his muscular shoulders and wrapped the towel around the back of his neck to hang off of his shoulders, "I decided to keep up my workout routine after I was done with my rehab after the accident. It keeps up the strength in my leg and stiffness out of my wrist."

She nodded to his explanation as she lost her friendly smile. She had heard in broad strokes the story of his 'run in' with a taco truck years ago in order to save Carly's life from iCarly. However, she didn't realize that he had any lingering problems due to it.

He walked to the kitchen and took a quick swig of his bottled water. He wiped his mouth with a dry part of the end of the towel then sat the bottle on the counter and opened up the refrigerator. "I could fix us some breakfast, but…" He took a quick glance of the contents and finished with a regretful tone, "I'm not seeing much I could use."

She paused in replying as she stared at his muscular back and felt her cheeks partially warm and figured that she was blushing. She finally shook her head and muttered out, "No, just a few instant meals to last a few days before I could go out shopping."

He closed the refrigerator and turned to the lovely brunette. "We could go out for breakfast and I could help go grocery shopping with you?"

She gave him an awkward smile as she answered, "That's fine. You're going to need to eat for the next week and I think you'd want more than just take out every night." Tori leaned against the counter and asked, "You want to hit the bookstore today? I still need to pick up a few things."

"I've already ordered my books on-line, but I'd be happy to go with you and be an extra set of hands."

She gave him a bright smile which her eyes shined in agreement. "Thanks."

The pair looked at one another while silence fell between them. Tori tried to avoid staring at his muscular build highlighted from the sweat still on his arms from the work out. At the same time Freddie was trying to randomly glance away from seeing how well Tori wore her T-shirt as his baser instincts had decided that she wasn't wearing an undergarment under the T-shirt and how her very short shorts accentuated her shapely and toned legs.

Freddie let out a forced laugh, "I'm going to get a quick shower and meet you out here in a few minutes."

She put on an awkward smile and laughed along with him, "Right. I actually need to hit the shower myself."

He motioned towards the bathrooms as they were in the same general direction and he was being polite in letting her start first towards her destination. That's what his conscious mind was telling him as an explanation to let her walk ahead of him, but as the brunette smile to him and turned to head for the bathroom that went with her room, his head bowed and eyes went to look at the back of her legs and her behind. Once again he blushed in shame for doing such a thing.

Tori turned and headed to the bathroom that was to the left of her bedroom and partially blocked from view with a partition wall. This short wall created to create some symmetry with the end of the other bedroom allowed her to slip from her room to the bathroom without one seeing her from the end of the short hallway created by the other room and bathroom on the other side.

She was happy with this fluke up architectural design as she knew it would reassure Freddie that they would be maintaining proper decorum between them for the rest of his stay. Also it shielded her for a moment to allow her to look over her shoulder and capture a quick glanced towards Freddie as he slipped into the first bathroom in the hallway.

The pair quickly went through their respective routine of stripping and heading into their showers, each not realizing the other was starting the shower off as a cold one because of the other.

UCLA Bookstore  
308 Westwood Plaza  
Los Angeles, CA  
Sunday, September 18, 2012

After grabbing a quick breakfast, the brunette pair made their way to the school's bookstore. The pair walked fairly close together as they made their way through the bustling bookstore with Freddie carrying a store basket to carry Tori's textbooks and whatever else caught her eyes. The occasional guy passing them by would eye Tori in a near leering manner, but quickly lost interest as apparently they figured Freddie was her boyfriend at seeing the closeness the pair was walking together and they didn't want the hassle of competing with the muscular teenager for Tori's attention.

At the moment, Freddie stopped the pair in front a particular section of the shelf of books as he thought he may have found one of her books. He idly commented as he double checked the title while running his finger across the spine of the book, "Hey, I have this book. We can just share."

Tori took the literature book from him and took a look at the back of it. She thankfully laughed out, "Thanks, that's a hundred bucks I don't need to spend. I guess at least some things we're sharing is a good thing: classes."

He snorted out a laugh, "With some of the class sizes, we were bound to be in some gen ed classes, but I never said that sharing an apartment with you was a bad thing."

She rolled her eyes and laughed out, "Right, it's not a bad thing, you're just totally against the idea and unhappy with it."

He leaned slightly forward and invaded her personal space just a little more than he already was doing with them walking so close together. He whispered in a conspiratorial manner, "True, but I never said that it was a bad thing."

She gave him a soft nod of her head and a corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. She turned back towards the aisle of books and started making her way down the shelf searching for the next book on her list.

He paused for a moment in following her then took a deep breath and put on a serious expression so he could ask, "You know it's not because of you, right?"

She stopped and turned to look at him with a confused expression.

He continued with what he hoped was a sympathetic tone, "It really is the situation, not because it's you. There are plenty of guys that would jump at the chance of living with you for the obvious reasons."

Her brow knotted in such a cute way to Freddie's eyes as she responded, "Reasons?"

He let out a soft chuckle as he commented, "I've lost count how many guys have checked you out while we've been here. If you don't mind me saying, you're a beautiful, hot girl. Do I need to paint a picture of combining that living in close quarters with you?"

She bowed her head and tried not to blush at his compliment. She obviously was not naïve in that aspect of being blind to such an occurrence or she wouldn't have thought to reassure her father during their phone call or Freddie. She was half tempted to make the same comparison with having such a handsome guy under her roof, however she decided against it, fearfully that he might draw an unwanted conclusion about how she may feel about him. She finally looked up at him and questioned with a coy tone, "So you haven't thought about that picture for yourself?"

His friendly smile faded and Tori felt a momentary ping of regret as she felt that she may have just offended him. He bowed his head for a moment then looked up to answer with a regretful tone, "I chucked my morality and let my hormones and peer pressure of what others thought I should do make a decision for me one time before… I'm never going to let that happen again."

Tori nodded her head as she may not have understood the situation he meant, but would respect how serious his feelings were in the matter.

He cracked a soft smile as he whispered, "But I can't deny that the company is going to be great in the meantime."

She let out a soft laugh from his tension relieving joke.

The pair quickly fell into a comfortable silence just in time to hear Tori's phone ring from her pocket. She gave him an embarrassed smile and quickly reached into her jacket pocket to pull out the Pear device that was an identical model phone to Freddie's phone. She looked at the caller ID then quickly back to Freddie. She answered the call as she explained, "It's Beck." She turned her attention back to her phone and answered, "Hey Beck."

She pause to let the actor speak then she answered, "Oh, I'm out book shopping with my new roommate—"

Freddie was about to speak, but she raised her pointer finger of her free hand to her lips and playful smirked to him. He got the message that she didn't want to reveal to the actor on the other end of the phone the identity of Tori's mysterious roommate.

Tori smirked as she continued, "We're out getting my books for class." She waited again then answered, "Oh, we're getting along great. Actually, you won't believe who my roommate is—at least for this week until they find them another place." She paused again to wait for Beck to finish his question. "You do know the person and it's an interesting story that I have to tell you and Jade… hey, how about we meet you back at my place in about an hour, but you're bringing the food. We haven't gotten a chance to make it to the grocery store to stock the kitchen yet. Does that sound good?"

She put on a bright smile as apparently the actor agreed to her suggestion. "Okay, we'll see you later, bye." She pressed the end call button and let out a soft laugh, "You get to see Beck and Jade."

Freddie softly smirked to her as commented, "Good, it'd be nice to see them again. I guess I'm going to be a nice surprise for them."

Apartment 316  
Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA

About an hour after the conversation between the friends, the doorbell rang to the apartment and Tori was quick on her feet off the couch to answer the door. She opened the door to reveal the long haired actor with the addition of a mustache and hair on his chin. By his side was his very lovely and attractive girlfriend of one Jade West wearing a soft smirk at seeing the brunette.

Beck put on a bright smile at seeing the brunette and shouted with a joyful tone as he held two pizza boxes, "We come bringing lunch to warm your new home."

Tori laughed and opened her arms up for a hug, "Thanks."

He shifted the pizzas in one hand to allow for an awkward one arm hug. The friends pulled apart and Tori and Jade traded nods of their heads, but genuinely friendly smiles.

The brunette stepped aside to allow the couple to enter the apartment and shut the door behind them.

The couple stopped in their respective tracks when they saw the brown eyed boy smirking and waving at them from the couch.

The actor awkwardly laughed, "Freddie? Hey?"

Beck sat the pizzas down on the table next to door while Freddie got up from his seat and greeted them, "Hey you two."

Jade smiled at the former tech-producer and brought him into a quick hug. "Hey to you too."

He happily returned the hug then pulled back and gave her a quick once up and down. He smirked as he playfully asked, "You cut your hair? You're trying to go back to your natural hair color?"

Jade's hair was still a dark brunette color as it was before graduation, but the last time he had seen her in person was the previous September when she had experimented with the raven color for a few months and her hair was far longer than just the few inches past her shoulders. She smiled as she answered, "I wanted to try something a little different and it can be a pain maintaining hair that long."

He nodded along. "I've actually heard that once or twice, but it looks good."

She actually gave him a bashful smile as she answered, "Thanks."

He looked to Beck and commented with another laugh, "Are you making up for her cutting her hair?"

Beck absently ran a hand through his hair that had grown out to almost the same length as Jade's hair. He jovially laughed, "Maybe." The actor stuffed a hand in his pocket and asked, "What are you doing here?"

The Seattle native softly laughed out, "I'm going to school here."

"And he's my roommate," Tori laughed as she motioned to the muscular former tech-producer.

"That's a nice surprise," the pale girl commented with a genuine smile then raised her pierced eyebrow as she questioned, "Wait _you're_ roommates? He's your roommate?"

Tori smirked and shook her head. "Yeah, for a little while at least. There was a mix up and they assigned us together. We're hoping they can figure out something before school starts, but in the meantime we're stuck together."

Beck's brow furled as he questioned, "How could they accidentally assign you together? I heard the housing thing was a problem, but…"

Tori rolled her eyes and blew out an overdramatic breath, "I wrote Tori out of habit instead of Victoria on the housing application and they thought I was a guy, so they put Freddie with me."

Jade crossed her arms and softly mocked, "Way to go _Tori_."

"Jade," Freddie softly admonished with a boyish grin.

She slightly bowed her head to the side as she pointed out, "You're really going to defend her? You're the one out of an apartment."

He shrugged a shoulder and confidently smiled. "It's in my nature."

"You know what they say happens to nice guys…"

He passed a quick glance to Beck then raised a coy eyebrow to Jade as he answered, "They get with beautiful, loving multitalented ladies? Sounds like pretty good way to act to me."

She crossed her arms under her chest and slightly frowned, but her eyes didn't match her irritated facial expression. If anything, her eyes showed that she was flattered with the compliment.

Beck wrapped an arm around the small of her back and rested his hand on her hip so he could pull her close and give her a kiss on the cheek. The act just infuriated the dark brunette further, but he ignored it as he asked, "So, how about lunch?"

The group gathered around the small circular dinning table with Freddie passing drinks all around while Tori divvied up slices of pizza for them. Freddie took his seat after passing the filled glasses and asked Jade with a genuinely curious tone, "So, what have you been up to lately?"

"Other than starting school here? I've been getting offers from Mason Thornesmith and Shawn Quincy about signing up for a record deal."

Tori blinked in surprise and was nearly dumbfounded as she asked, "Mason and Quincy? They're thinking about signing you?"

Jade confidently smirked as nonchalantly answered, "André introduced us and I sang for him. He liked what he heard and apparently it got back to Mason, so he's trying to get me to sign with him… I think he's hedging his bets with me against you."

Freddie raised a cup and happily called out, "Congratulations. That must be a nice position to be in: them fighting over you."

She gave him a soft smirk. "Thanks."

The brown eyed teenager looked between Jade and Tori with a curious expression. "But what do you mean you think he's hedging his bets?" He looked specifically to Tori and continued, "So you have a record deal?"

Tori finished chewing a morsel of pizza then gave her roommate an embarrassing smile. "Yes, but… Mason's been taking it slow, so I've recorded a few songs during the summer. We might try for a summer tour next year. I might do a few small performances in the meantime."

Beck spoke up, "That's what doesn't make any sense to me on why he's taking his time and it's been bugging me."

The brunette let out a soft laugh and questioned, "Something actually bothering you?"

The long haired actor rolled his eyes then answered with a smirk, "I'm afraid he's just trying to use Jade again to manipulate you for some reason."

The pale girl frowned and gave her boyfriend a dark look while Tori looked somewhat embarrassed. Freddie quickly glanced at all of them and realized that the story was obvious a sore point for all of them.

He spoke up with a hesitant voice, "I'm obviously the odd-man-out on everything that went down at the PMAs about Tori getting it then Jade getting it then back to Tori and one of you might fill me in on the story later, but…" He looked to Tori and suggested, "Maybe you should talk to Quincy and see if he's willing to sign you up and get you out of your contract with Mason. If anything, it might spur Mason on get going with your music career and stop dragging his heels."

Tori spoke up with a raised tone, "Or get offended that I'm looking elsewhere then he'd really cut me loose. He's one of those guys that like firing people."

He shrugged a shoulder and casually commented, "All the more reason you might want to start looking elsewhere, starting with this Quincy guy. How can you have a music career if you're afraid of your producer?"

Tori looked down to her half eaten piece of pizza and thought on his point.

Beck spoke up with a supportive tone, "I think Freddie's right. From what I've heard from André, Quincy has been treating him right even after Hope and I haven't seen anything to suggest that he's leading Jade on or being unreasonable."

The brunette looked up to meet the long haired actor's eyes and seeing him giving her a supportive smile.

Jade surprised them when she spoke up with a quiet voice, "I think you should talk to Quincy too. Mason is willing to use anybody instead of being a partner in the music. He's looking out only for number one."

Beck gave his girlfriend a surprised expression at her suggestion and reasoning.

Jade slightly tilted her head to the side and commented, "What? Maybe just don't like being thought of as an afterthought to Tori?"

Freddie snorted out without thinking in an annoyed tone, "I know how that feels; it's not a pleasant feeling." He took a sip of his drink without bothering to notice the others giving him curious stares with Jade giving him a deeper, probing look as if she was trying to ferret out what he really meant. He sat his drink down then smiled and commented, "Hopefully we'll get a chance to see you two sing together. I was hoping that both of you were going to sing at the PMAs with the switch-a-roo with the names. I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't a duo."

Jade softly tapped the side of her glass with her fingernails as she cradled her drink. She admitted with slight regretful tone, "I was… I was being all noble because it was suppose to be her big night and I couldn't do that to her by performing in her spot. So we switched it on them at the last second. Some say that was probably stupid of me to do… give up the chance to be seen by hundreds of millions of people."

Freddie commented with a heavy weight to his voice, "It's a lot harder than people realize… but not doing it is even harder and costs you more in the end."

Jade gave him a curious expression for a few moments until the dawn of realization appeared on her face at seeing that he understood with him not backing down at her gaze as others naturally would back down. She gave him a slight nod of her head and he acknowledged it with one of his own.

He turned back to his glass and raised it, "To a future duet."

Tori laughed out, "You're really hoping for that aren't you?"

"Well I saw you on the PMAs…" he looked to Jade as he finished, "And besides us singing together and Kenan's party, I've heard you sing from the recording you sent Carly. I think I'm stating the obvious when I say you're good. I'm not going to apologize for pushing the idea of hoping to hear two very talented singers sing together."

Tori put on an embarrassing smile and Jade cracked a soft one, apparently being flattered as well. She continued with a proud voice, "We've sung together before. We sang 'Take a Hint' to these guys that were hitting on us at Nozu one time."

The brunette piped up, "We had to go out on a date."

Freddie's brow knotted as he slowly asked, "Go on a date?"

Beck quickly explained, "It was part of an acting exercise from Sikowitz about them playing a convincing married couple. They had to feel the part by going on a date. He's really big on method acting."

Jade added with a disgust filled tone, "He rigged it for us to play husband and wife."

Beck softly pointed out with a slight tap of his fingers on her forearm, "He wanted you two to get along better."

The pale girl snapped her head to her long haired boyfriend and hissed out, "It was none of his business how we got along and threatening to flunk us for the entire semester was ridiculous."

Freddie's brow knotted up as he stared at the couple. He commented with a tone mixed with disbelief and caution, "That seems… really janky to pull. Threatening your semester grade?"

Jade rolled her eyes. "Yeah it was and maybe we should have made a big deal of it after the play—my mother was pretty wazzed off when she heard the entire story—but we let it go."

Beck smirked as he pointed out, "Yeah, but you got along better."

Tori quickly spoke up, "The next week when I needed rides from people to get to school, she took me out to the middle of nowhere with a shovel in the backseat."

Jade smirked and spoke with a clearly innocent tone, "You don't know what I was going to do with that shovel. We were just taking the scenic route to school."

Freddie softly laughed, "You intended to bash her head in with it and bury her body for no one to find? Seems kind of amateuristic and not a lot of planning behind it if you wanted to get away with it if that was what you were planning."

She answered with a toying tone, "You think I would be that obvious and careless if I wanted to do such a thing?"

Freddie smile faded as he answered, "I… I don't know."

Jade frown and knotted her brow as if somewhat hurt by his answer.

He gave her an apologetic smile then quickly glanced to each of them. He regretfully continued, "We really don't know each other… I mean… if you look at it, we've only really known each other for less than three days: a night at Kenan's party and the two days the weekend of Tori's play."

The pale girl nodded along at seeing his point while Beck awkwardly looked away.

Tori frowned and looked down at her piece of pizza. She muttered out with a regretful tone, "Sorry, I guess it just kind of feels like we know you from watching you on the show and your other videos for years."

Freddie nodded his head in understanding at remembering for some, he was a minor celebrity and with that fans had a false sense of familiarity with him.

The brunette lifted her head and let a smile form on her face as a renewed sense of cheer filled her, "But that is a problem we are going to fix, remember?"

The brown eyed teenager returned the smile and nodded along.

The couple glanced to one another obvious in the dark about the previous conversation the unlikely roommates had in private at some point, but individually picked up the general meaning.

Beck spoke up, "Right. This is college and we're supposed to meet new people and experience new things."

The blue streaked hair girl softly laughed, "You're tempting Fate with those words."

Freddie narrowed his eyes and softly mocked, "Let her take her best shot at me, I'm still standing."

Tori's PearPhone rang and interrupted the group's moment. She pulled out the blue cellphone to see the caller ID. Tori looked up from her phone to give a quick glance to the rest of them and answered, "It's Cat." She answered the call and brought it to her ear. "Hey Cat. I'm at my apartment—Jade and Beck are over here eating lunch."

She nodded along and the rest could actually hear the faint excitement of the redhead on the other end of the phone.

The brunette softly laughed, "Yes Cat, I will meet your new roommate. I want you to meet mine too, _temporary roommate_, you'll figure out why when you see them." Tori happily suggested, "I know what we can do: Let's all meet up to have a partial reunion dinner tonight. It'll be great."

Jade instantly frowned at the suggesting, but quickly relented with a soft roll of her eyes at hearing Cat's excitement on the other end of the phone so loud that Tori had to pull the phone away from her ear.

"Okay, we'll see you at about seven tonight. Bye Cat." Tori pressed the end call button. She happily grinned to the rest of them and commented, "It looks like we're all going to have dinner at Cat's at seven."

Jade blew out a breath. "She's been going on about wanting me to meet her for days. I keep putting it off."

Tori asked with a slightly furled brow. "Why?"

Beck quickly answered for his girlfriend, "She's not happy with Cat moving in with some stranger, but she won't admit it. I don't think she wants to upset Cat."

Jade crossed her arms under her chest and shot the handsome actor a dirty expression.

Tori was not in the mood to witness the pair get into a potential argument, so she asked in the hopes of starving it off and to satisfy her curiosity, "How is she paying for an apartment anyway? I thought she was living with her Nona."

Jade shrugged a shoulder and answered with a tired voice that suggested that it was a question that she had struggled with for a while. "I don't know why she moved out from her. I think her parents are sending her some money and said something about starting a babysitting business out of the apartment."

Tori wearily asked, "Cat babysitting children?"

Jade rolled her eyes and softly shook her head. "Don't ask… it doesn't make any more sense to me either."

Freddie raised a curious eyebrow. "I don't understand. I know she seemed kind of… childish when I saw her last year, but I don't see the problem."

Tori patiently and regretfully explained, "Cat's gotten worst since the last time you saw her."

Freddie's brow knotted up again, but this time it was a hint of fear. He asked with a concerned and fearful tone, "How bad? How bad are we talking about? I mean… is she well enough to live on her own?"

Tori looked surprised that she saw a momentary ghost of a look of fear and concern cross Jade's face with the question.

The blue streaked hair girl pursed her lips for a moment then answered with a resigned tone, "We'll see."

Freddie and Beck gave the girl sympathetic expressions as apparently she had resigned to the fact that she couldn't change the situation at the moment and was just waiting to pick up the pieces of what she thought was going to end up in disaster.

Tori questioned with a more upbeat tone as to not turn the gathering of friends into a melancholy reunion, "So we're all definitely in to going to Cat's tonight?"

Jade still didn't look too thrilled with the idea, however she muttered, "We might as well see who she's rooming with… make sure she's not with some psycho and she's alright."

The brunette gently prodded, "And if she's not?"

The dark brunette frowned as she answered with a near sharp tone, "We have enough room at my house and my mom would be happy for her to stay."

Tori was obviously quite curious to her former rivals feelings on that idea and asked in a straightforward manner, "How would you feel about Cat living with you?"

Jade paused and looked uncomfortable for a moment before she admitted in a quiet tone that to her explained everything, "She's my friend."

Freddie nodded his head at being glad to see that one of the first deep, meaningful things to find out about the girl (other than her genuine friendliness she has shown him in their two meetings) that on the surface looked like a cliché gothic girl was that she had some real depth to her heart and loyalty to her friend to the point of wanting her to live with her in the redhead's time of need.

Tori cracked a soft smile at seeing the Jade's rarely shown sensitive and compassionate side.

The pale girl immediately dived back into her pizza with the obvious sign that she didn't want to discuss the matter any further.

Freddie suppressed a laugh at seeing a close parallel of her to Sam when the dirty blonde cared for the former love of his life, but didn't want to advertise it.

Tori got the message as well and decided to switch to a more pleasant topic. She spoke up with a curious and happy tone, "So Beck, what's this I hear about you auditioning to play a psychopath?"

* * *

Author's Note: I hope that was a satisfying chapter and you'll tune in for the next one. It should be an interesting dinner at Cat's apartment. Later, OneHorseShay.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey everyone, Happy Presidents Day! In celebration, (actually I got behind in this while writing 'Not so Typical Valentine's Day') I thought I'd post this latest chapter. Thank you all that have read and review. For the others that read, don't be shy in sending a review. I love hearing from my readers.

Challenge King: Thank you. It's kind of tricky to work with connecting them as there is so little interaction with them even in the crossover. I wanted to acknowledge that Freddie found Tori attractive in the crossover while also acknowledging that physically speaking, Tori could find him attractive. Now I just have to show the compatibility of the pair on an emotional and personality level.

About Jade/Freddie moments… I'm a Jedi shipper, I can't help it. On a more serious note, Freddie is trying to start over as a lot of college students experience their freshman year and as anyone that has read my Jedi stories, the pair surprisingly have a lot in common that one would not expect.

Fanfic-Reader-88: You hit the nail on the head: they aren't blind. Remember how Freddie described her in 'iParty with Victorious'? How will he change when he finds out the identity of Cat's roommate? You'll have to read to find out.

Boris Yeltsin: I'm not spoiling that.

darck ben: Actually, Liz cut her hair off during the progression of the final season of show and in the story; it is still the same dark brunette it was during the last part of the show. Liz's hair is about the same length right now, but in pics, she brushes it past behind her shoulders to make it look shorter than it is and of course she's back to her natural hair color.

Beck's hair really grew out near the end of the series run and I just added his recent fuzz on his chin.

Twilight Warrior 627: I tried to maintain the interaction as close to canon as possible at this point since I'm not assuming any real character growth from the Victorious characters since 'The Slap Fight' (the real last episode of the series), Freddie on the other hand since 'iGoodbye'? That is another story.

I wonder what could happen when they meet her roommate too… oh wait, I did and wrote it

Agent-M-0167: I hope it is going to be a good one. There are very little Teddie stories, so I'm hoping to make my mark. I think the stories might get better as one gains experience in writing, hopefully the material will get better.

I would respectfully have to disagree on making them my own, just taking what is there and fleshing them out as a consequence of their inner traits and not hitting the reset button after every episode so that they are learning and growing characters. Dan is not one for character development and I think quite frankly, despises it.

I think making my own would actually skip that enduring process and just getting to an endpoint character wise.

Pbow: I think the reason he portrays characters in that way is because he's a lazy writer who wants to write stories with set piece characters instead of the story organically growing out of his characters. For him, plot is God, regardless if it makes any sense in light of the characters he's established. I could go at length in examples across iCarly and Victorious where he's let the plot rule and outright damage characters in the process.

I'm not telling who Cat's roommate is; you'll just have to read the story.

You must be thinking of a different story, because a flyer is not the way he showed up. Once you figure out which story that is, let me know so I can read it.

Okay, on with the story, wait, one last thing: PD31 has posted I think two new chapters for his Tori/Freddie story 'Freddie Goes to Hollywood' in the last few days, so you might want to check it out.

Rating: T

* * *

Chapter 4

Valentine Apartment  
Los Angeles, CA  
Sunday, September 18, 2012

The quartet arrived outside of Cat's apartment at ten minutes to seven with Tori taking the lead to the door.

Jade wore a deep scrawl on her face with her arms crossed under her chest as she commented, "Let's just get this over with."

Beck raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend and slightly frowned in disapproval of the actress' reaction.

The dark brunette closed her eyes and softly shook her head as she responded to the slight admonishment, "It's not that I don't want to see Cat; it's her roommate that I don't want to deal with."

The aspiring actor rolled his eyes as he responded with a placating tone, "You don't even know her. Shouldn't you at least meet her before judging her?"

Jade answered with a clipped tone, "Assuming she really is a she and not a guy…" She threw a look at Tori with the brunette responding with a frown and narrowed her eyes.

Jade smirked at seeing that she had gotten under Tori's skin to relieve the bit of her annoyance she knew she was going to feel after meeting Cat's roommate. She finished with a bit of disgust to the rest of them, "…I don't want to have to adopt a stray. It was getting bad enough with putting up with Sinjin towards graduation and him trying to worm his way in."

Freddie let out a chuckle and shook his head at seeing that the girls apparently have a lighter and more subdue version of his former friendship with Sam. He looked to Jade and softly called out, "Do I count as a stray?"

The pale girl's mouth dropped open as if she had a response, but not a sound was uttered which left the singer confused for an answer.

The former tech-producer lifted an eyebrow to further press for an answer.

She quickly shut her mouth as she suddenly felt awkward in not knowing how to respond.

Beck tried to suppress a smirk forming on his face at seeing that Freddie was able to inadvertently silence his girlfriend.

Of all people to come to the dark brunette's rescue, it was Tori softly knocking on the door to distract from the awkwardness. A few moments later, the door opened to reveal Cat smiling ear to ear. She shouted for joy as she nearly tackled her brunette friend, "Tori!"

The brunette laughed and returned the hug, "It's good to see you too Cat."

The excited teenager pulled away and started giggling while playing with the end of her hair. Cat turned her gaze to see the former mean girl of Hollywood Arts and shouted, "Jade!" The shorter girl nearly tackled her pale friend, but Jade was able to hold her ground. She rolled her eyes but returned the hug instead of shoving the girl away.

She awkwardly smiled as she returned with a friendly greeting, "Hi Cat."

The redhead quickly pulled away then turned and gave Beck a hug while the long haired teenager let out a genuine laugh at the girl's greeting. "Hey Cat."

The three blocked Freddie from Cat's view as she insisted that they step inside, so she didn't greet him, but turned to introduce her roommate approaching from behind her, "I want you to meet my roommate."

Sam smile brightly at the recent graduates and shouted with a laugh, "Hello, so you finally decided to stop by?"

The three stopped in their tracks at seeing the troublemaker from Seattle. Tori's mouth dropped open and started blinking with the significance of seeing the dirty blonde.

The dirty blonde laughed out louder, "Surprised to see me?"

Freddie stepped between Tori and Jade and the pair froze as they saw one another. The brown eyed teenager whispered out, "That's one way to describe it."

Cat looked on in surprise at seeing from her view the Seattleite appear like magic from behind her friends while her former Seattleite roommate questioned in disbelief, "Freddie? What—what are you doing here?"

He cautiously answered, "I'm going to school at UCLA; what are _you_ doing here?"

Sam hesitated for a moment then answered, "I got on the road and eventually found myself in Los Angeles."

He shook his head in disgust and muttered, "Yeah, you just got on the road and took off."

The former web-hostess frowned at his level of hostility then retorted with an annoyance filled voice, "I really didn't see the point in staying."

Freddie nodded and relaxed his tone as he responded, "I can understand that… I didn't have an overwhelming need to stay in Seattle either. I thought I'd get at least a goodbye."

Sam slightly bowed her head from the clear accusation, but refrained from commenting on it and instead saying, "I'd expect you to be in Italy right now."

He raised an eyebrow and nonchalantly asked, "Now what would I have in Italy that would be worth the trouble of going?"

Sam's eyes shot open in surprise at how dismissive he was at such an idea.

Tori pursed her lips at seeing the bitterness that Freddie had hid about Carly deciding to stay in Italy even if his tone didn't reveal any of it. Jade and Beck shared quick, confused expressions for Freddie for being so cold about his absent longtime friend. The confusion led to curiosity for the couple, but neither wanted to voice it as they saw that this was apparently a delicate situation for the reunited friends.

Cat wore a surprisingly enlightened expression about what was going on and surprised everyone by turning the conversation back to Tori. "I thought you were bringing your roommate?"

"I am—I did," Tori let out a soft laugh and grateful for the distraction. She pointed over to Freddie and finished, "Freddie is my roommate."

Sam gave him a disbelieving expression. "You're rooming with Tori?"

Freddie blew out an annoyed breath as he answered, "It was an accident and they don't have any open slots at the moment, so I'm staying." He looked to the brunette and gave her a playful admonishing expression. "I wanted to just rent a hotel room, but she insisted that I stay."

She raised her voice as she emphatically retorted, "I am not having you pay for my mistake."

Sam frowned while cautiously inquiring, "How did your mom react when you told her?"

The brown eyed teenager looked to the troublemaking blonde and answered flippantly, "I haven't because I know how she would react…" He knotted his brow and stared her straight in the eyes and finished with a cold tone, "Don't you _dare_ go behind my back and tell her."

Sam looked like she was going to give him a smart remark, but Freddie gave her a deep frown and outright glared at her that caught her off guard. "I mean it Sam. Don't you dare tell her; you know how she would freak out and assume the worst. I am not dealing with that mess and I don't have the patience to deal with you."

Sam raised her hands up in surrender. "I won't tell her."

Cat gave her a look hopeful expression that she would keep her word.

She looked back to Cat and reiterated, "I won't tell her."

Freddie's brow relaxed as he looked on in surprise at seeing how submissive his ex-girlfriend was towards the redhead.

Cat happily shouted out with glee, "Who's ready for dinner?"

* * *

Jade and Beck had a seat on one side of the dinning table next to the kitchen area (Jade refusing to be separated from Beck in seating arrangement) while Freddie took on end with Jade on his right and Tori on his left. Cat took the seat next to Tori and Sam (after setting the bowls to allow them to make their individual spaghetti tacos) rounded out the group by taking a seat at the end of the table, directly across from Freddie.

Cat eagerly dug in to prepare her own as apparently to Freddie, Sam had introduced them to her redhead roommate at some point and knew how to prepare them. He looked on in surprise as the other naturally knew how to fix them as well.

Tori saw his confused expression and quickly explained, "We had them a couple of times at Hollywood Arts from seeing you guys on Ricky Flames show."

Freddie lifted his brow and answered with a wide mouth, "AH."

"Yep, they were pretty good," Jade commented as she finished preparing one of her own.

The brown eye former Seattleite raised a curious eyebrow to Sam and asked, "You cooked?"

She smirked. "Mama needs to eat?"

"That's one thing that hasn't changed," he laughed out.

Sam just shook her head as she wasn't in disagreement with that assessment.

The redhead looked between Tori, Jade and Beck and asked with a worried tone, "Have you heard from Robbie?"

Beck shook his head and answered with a regretful breath, "Nope."

Tori blew out and commented with a worried tone, "I hope he's alright."

Cat slightly frowned as she looked down at her plate.

Sam rubbed her hand up and down Cat's arm in a comforting gesture. "I'm sure he's fine Red."

The petite actress nodded her head then turned back to her meal.

Freddie couldn't keep the surprise off of his face at seeing Sam being comforting like that to the childlike teenager. His surprise quickly turned into concern as he didn't know what to make of Sam's behavior. He didn't get to raise it as Sam quickly asked, "So Fredward, how exactly did you end up as Tori's roommate?"

The former tech-producer glanced to Tori and silently asked whether or not he should go into any details. Tori answered by answering for him, "It was my fault. When filling out the housing application, I wrote Tori instead of Victoria out of habit. They thought I was a guy, so they paired me up with Freddie. Since there's such a housing crunch for all the new freshman, they don't have anyplace to move either of us."

Sam softly mocked, "I bet you're loving that."

Freddie narrowed his eyes and questioned with a tone mixed with annoyance and caution, "Why? Why would I be 'loving that'?"

The dirty blonde let out a hearty laugh, "Do I have to spell it out for you nub? You're sharing an apartment with a girl you think is hot… even hotter than Shelby Marx."

Tori's eyes shot open and her lips pursed with that revelation on how Freddie looked at her while the other suddenly felt awkward at the table with Jade being the exception of being annoyed.

He snapped back, "They're identical, so they're identically hot. I blame that janky computer for saying otherwise sending out crazy time waves."

Sam cocked her head to the side and gave him that soft scrawl of questioning his sanity. "Really? That's your chizzy excuse?"

"How did I pull up a picture of her that she wouldn't take for another few _weeks_? It isn't the first weird thing that has happened with us: Magic Malika, Gibby actually being able to date Tasha, you being as strong as an Olympic weightlifter and you constantly stuffing your face with food but not gaining any weight, and I can take beatings from you and nose dives out of trees without, you know… _dying_. Sam, weird things happen around us."

Sam frowned as she looked down at her plate and apparently conceding his point.

The brunette gave him a curious expression as she asked, "What photo?"

Freddie blew out a breath and rolled his eyes as he really didn't want to get into this discussion, "The one during your Full Moon Jam when you sung 'Begging on Your Knees'."

"What about it?"

"We saw it on TheSlap… before we met you."

Tori let out a nervous laugh as she darted her eyes about to the rest of them before landing on Freddie, "That's not possible. That happened _after_ we met."

Freddie shrugged a shoulder. "Like I said… strange things happen around us."

Tori looked to Sam for an explanation and the blonde reluctantly nodded her head in agreement. The brunette shook her head as she tried to process that impossibility and for the moment ignoring the fact that Freddie thought she was hot. However, that was brought back up to the forefront of her mind with Jade's question to Freddie, "So you think Tori's hot?"

Freddie surprisingly ignored Tori's curious gaze to him and glanced Jade to calmly answer, "Yes."

The dark brunette looked at him with mild surprise of his casual answer and let it filter into her voice, "Just… yes?"

He knotted his brow and answered with a confused tone, "What else is there to say other than to say since you're both here, you and Cat are hot too?" He glanced quickly to all three girls, making sure he made eye contact with each. "I thought that was fairly self-evident." He looked to Beck and quickly asked, "You're not going to punch me for that are you?"

A soft blush formed on Tori's cheeks from the compliment while Cat let out a giggle. Jade was more impressed that Freddie so easily voiced the obvious in her case than actually being flattered by the comment. She also resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the concept that Beck could ever show any real jealousy if another guy had shown any interest in her and tried to push down the annoyance of such a lack of possessiveness on his part.

Sam chuckled, "He'd probably break his hand on your face like Gibby."

Freddie rolled his eyes as he recalled when Gibby was suppose to fake punch him to get them out of playing as a band in the Groovy Smoothie that Sam had arranged for them to play when it was only suppose to be a private gig for some ladies that Gibby had wanted to hook up with. The Johnny-come-lately to the iCarly crew however swung on Freddie at the wrong moment and actually punched him. The former tech-producer blew out a breath and verbally defended himself, "He only broke _two_ of his fingers and we wouldn't have had to worry about it in the first place if you would have just kept your nose out of our business."

She dismissively laughed off, "Where would the fun have been in that?"

He stared at her with a cold stare and just remained silent for a few moments.

Sam lost her smile as she was actually growing concern for a moment before Freddie whispered out, "Yes… you find it fun sabotaging your so-called friends in relationships… you've always been good at that, haven't you?" He glanced to Cat and warned, "Careful Cat, she might find it _fun_ to interfere with any relationship you have in the future… maybe even with Robbie."

Cat softly bit her bottom lip and gave Sam a worried expression while the blonde clenched her jaw tightly and looked to Freddie with a death glare. Freddie looked back without a bit of fear.

Sam took several soft breaths to calm her nerves then asked, taking a particular dig at him, "Speaking of _Carly_… have you heard from her?"

Freddie shrugged a shoulder and looked down to his food while answering, "A few text messages, a phone call or two, but that's about it, you?"

Sam looked down at her plate and mumbled out, "A few emails, a video chat, but not much else." She looked up and the former couple exchanged looks as each was thinking of sarcastic things to say about Carly and the situation, but both saw that it was pointless in making them as they already agreed with one another.

Jade asked with a not so subtle tone of annoyance towards Sam to break the potential staring contest, "So, how did you wind up here rooming with Cat?"

The blonde turned to her spaghetti taco and quickly took another bite. She quickly chewed the bit in her mouth then answered with only half her mouth stuffed with food, "Long story short? I stole some money from my mom, as if she'll miss it, then hit the road until I found myself in L.A. I met up with Cat. She wanted to move out of her Nona's for college and I needed a place to crash."

Tori curiously asked the pair, "How are you paying for this place?"

Sam answered, "We're babysitting to earn some extra money for rent, utilities and food with whatever Cat's parents are sending."

Jade frowned at how she perceived it as Sam sponging off of Cat for a place to stay.

Freddie's eyes shot open wide and spoke out before thinking, "You're terrible with kids and parents of our fans thought you were a horrible influence."

"I'm not that bad—"

Freddie leaned forward and hissed out in disgust, "You started up a sweatshop with nine year olds."

Sam shook her head. "Exaggerating much?"

"It was a _sweatshop_. You can't massage that Sam."

He looked to the rest and continued, "She got them so upset with the working conditions that they started producing their own shirts and tried to keep all the money themselves. Penny had to go through the trouble of suing their parents to get them to stop and recover the money they made off of her shirts. We're lucky that Penny is Socko's sister or she might have come after us for the trouble we put her through to get them to stop."

Sam rolled her eyes and lifted a hand to open it and close it rapidly as if it was talking to mock him.

"Mock me all you want, but it doesn't change the fact you don't have Carly to bail you out of trouble anymore, so you're on borrowed time before you start to have to answer for what you do. Your charmed life isn't going to last forever… speaking of another charmed thing, I never got a chance to ask you, but how did you get the motorcycle from Spencer?"

Sam frowned and glared at him. "I didn't steal it."

He had one of those rare occasions where he wasn't intimidated by gaze and calmly replied, "I didn't say you did. I'm just curious as to how it happened."

Her guarded demeanor dropped and was quickly replaced with a smirk then she proudly explained, "He said I was a great friend to Carly and that I have a good heart and I deserve to have it."

Freddie blinked a few times and stated without conscious thought, "Was he high at the time?"

Sam's brow knotted with confusion.

The brown eyed teenager hissed out, "You and I know that is a bunch of chizz."

The dirty blonde clenched her teeth and narrowed her eyes on him in hatred.

"You made my life a living Hell for years… you made a lot of people's lives Hell and he had the nerve to say that?" Freddie shook his head in disgust. "He can actually say that as he watched all the pain you put me and others through for your amusement?" He took a deep breath then let it out in the hope of taking some of his stress away, "You know what? Good riddance to him too. I'm not going to miss him as much as I thought."

Cat began, "Freddie, it can't be that ba—"

He cut off the redhead, "She nearly murdered me in cold blood twice and has threatened to break my legs if I said that Carly was a better kisser than her and that's just three things out of a long list of things you did to me over the years, so please Cat, I'm not going to believe that good heart chizz."

Sam snapped back in return, "You didn't think that way when we started dating."

Freddie relaxed back in his seat and answered with a flippant tone, "It's been a long four months without either of you and I did _a lot_ of thinking in the meantime. That's what you do when you're alone and waiting for your life to start up again. It gives one a chance to look at one's life in an entirely new perspective. I only got with you because everyone pressured me to give you a chance and you put out."

Sam blinked in shock as that was the last thing she expected to say.

He laughed out as if that had been a great weight on his chest, "There, I said it, the truth and the truth with you was that you got with me because I looked cute bleeding on the ground. Let's not pretend it was anything deeper than that." He glanced to the rest and explained, "Before any of you start thinking it, no, we never went that far… thank God I had enough sense not to go that far with you, but you were quite eager to make out with me… even after we broke up."

Freddie got up from his seat and looked to the redhead. "You should kick her out Cat before she starts using you as a punching bag since she doesn't have me around anymore." He looked to Sam and whispered out in disgust, "That's what you turned Gibby into when you cut back on hitting me, but not stopping, when we were together. Lucky Carly covered for you _again_ or you would have been in juvie for sending Gibby to the emergency room, but she's not here now."

He finally looked to Tori and tried to suppress his angry expression, but wasn't entirely successful. He questioned as he motioned his head to Jade and Beck, "I'm sorry, but I've lost my appetite. If you don't mind, could you get a ride back with them?"

Freddie headed to the door and exited without another word.

Cat looked completely dumbfounded at what just transpired in front of her.

Tori looked on in horror as the brown eyed teenager turned and headed out of the apartment.

Jade clenched her fists tightly and narrowed her gaze at Sam while whispering out coldly, "You touch her and I'll hit you with a bus."

It was barely a minute after Freddie had left that Tori was dragging Jade and Beck out of the apartment with a hasty goodbye to Cat and Jade throwing another threat to Sam. Tori dashed down the few flights of stairs in the hopes that she could catch up with her angry roommate.

The trio reached the lobby and Tori frantically looked around, but saw no sign of the former tech-producer.

Jade shouted with a mild disbelief and annoyance, "Why are you so bugging?"

Tori snapped around and explained with a hyperactive tone, "Because I don't know where he's going. I don't have a clue where he could be going."

Jade crossed her arms under her chest and sighed out before pointing out, "What does it matter where's he going to go? He just moved here and living with you. He's probably just driving around to clear his head as he obviously has a lot of issues with Sam." She flicked her brow up and commented with a dry tone, "And apparently for good reason."

Tori slumped her shoulders as she couldn't argue with Jade's logic. She felt a sense of helplessness start to seep through her body as she realized that Freddie was right, that there was a lot about him that she didn't know and for some reason, that embarrassed her. She shook her head as she wasn't going to let that helpless feeling dictate her actions.

She pulled out her phone and quickly pulled up Freddie's number on her call list then tapped the screen with her thumb to dial the number. The call went straight to voice mail and Tori quickly spoke, "Freddie, it's me Tori. Call me back please. Let me know where you are. Bye."

The brunette pressed the end call button and slipped the phone back into her pocket with a regretful expression.

Beck suggested with a tired smile. "Come on; let's take you back to your apartment. We can wait for him with you as long as we can." He was surprised when he didn't hear a word of argument from his girlfriend.

About fifteen minutes or so later, Beck pulled his GTO around Tori's apartment complex and the brunette was surprised at seeing that saw Freddie sitting out on the balcony to the pair's room, just looking out to the surrounding scenery. Beck quickly parked his vehicle and Tori was the first to dash out of the car and start towards her apartment. Beck and Jade were quickly behind her as Tori made her way up the stairs.

The brunette pulled out her keys and quickly inserted one into the deadbolt then to the door handle. Just as she was about to enter, Beck offered with a concerned laced voice, "Call if you need us. You look like you two need to talk alone… a roommate thing."

Jade spoke up, "You tell him I want to have a talk with him tomorrow."

The long haired inspiring actor knotted his brow as he glanced to his girlfriend.

Tori gave them a grateful nod then opened the apartment door and quickly slid inside. She shut and locked the door behind her before quietly cutting through the living room to reach the balcony.

The brunette took the other seat on the balcony next to him and looked out to the adequate view. He initially ignored her presence and she didn't push for an acknowledgement. She quietly asked in the manner that she was about to start a bit of small talk, "How did you get in?"

Freddie shrugged a shoulder and lamely commented, "A manager was kind enough to let me in."

She looked to him with a hesitant and sad expression while asking with a hushed tone, "Hey?"

"Hey."

"I was worried… you… dashed out so quickly."

He looked down regretfully and refused to meet her eyes. "Sorry, but the company soured the evening for me… I didn't want you to really see that kind of baggage, especially when I'm trying to start over."

Tori took a quick breath then answered, "It's okay… It must be awkward having problems with your friends being aired out. D-do you want to talk about… anything?"

Freddie shook his head and softly commented with a regretful tone, "Tori… we've know each for less than a week… dumping my life story on someone in all honesty I really don't know isn't high on my To-Do list."

She put on a hopeful expression as she asked, not consciously knowing why she would ask, "You could always take a leap with me even if it's only been less than a week?"

His voice was filled with bitterness as he turned his head away while answering, "No one has ever caught me before, why should I expect someone to start now?"

Tori looked down at the concrete floor of the balcony. She got up from her seat and reached into one of her jeans pocket. She gently took his right wrist and pulled his arm out and turned his hand to face palm up. He looked up to her with a curious expression as she dropped a set of keys in his hand and whispered, "Maybe it's just seeing you on the show for years that makes me think I know you, but I'm taking a leap with you."

He looked down at the silver keys then back up to the lovely brunette with an astonished expression.

She planted a soft kiss on his cheek then gave him a warm smile and softly spoke, "Goodnight Freddie." She turned and headed back inside as he looked at her retreating form until she turned the corner to their respective rooms. He looked down at the keys again then settled in his seat to look out to the L.A. night with a lost expression playing on his face.

Author's Note: I hope you liked this chapter. You get to see Tori see some of the inner workings and history of her roommate while having them connect more on an emotional level. You also got to see me poke holes in the premise and problems with the concept behind 'Sam & Cat', but who knows, maybe Dan can pull it off?

Also, I'm borrowing from myself the explanation as to how Freddie could say that Tori was someone hotter than Shelby: The Time Lord behind the curtain scrambling his brain.

For the iCarly fans, yes Sam was referring to iGet Banned, but obviously it played out differently in this story's history than in that episode. As any regular viewer of the show can see, Freddie can take a beating—mostly from Sam with her superhuman strength—so Gibby able to barely tap Freddie in the nose and somehow knock him clean out is absolutely ridiculous, so I'm one man invoking Fanon Discontinuity on that scene.

Special Guest Star Jennette McCurdy as Sam Puckett


	5. Chapter 5

Hello everyone! I'm sorry of the gap in updates for this story, but you know how life goes and fickle muses are in wanting to sometime needing to work on other projects. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this update. Also, I need to go back and answer all the reviews you wonderful people gave me for the last chapter because I don't think I answered everyone.

Rating: T Language

* * *

Chapter 5

Apartment 316  
Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA  
Monday, September 19, 2012

Freddie finished dressing and slipped his light brown jacket on and over his shoulders as he made his way out of his room in the mid-morning. He turned to his dresser and swiped his keys and PearPhone (having switched back to his special edition blue XT from the comically oversized one his mother had given him just before graduation) to slip into his pockets then headed out of his room. He subconsciously thought the oversized phone and necessity of a large carrying case that was mistaken for a purse was a way for his mother to further attempt to feminize him and express her subconscious resentment of him for being born male.

He cut through the living room and headed for the door just as the doorbell rang. He slightly nodded at the coincidence of a visitor just he was leaving out. He opened the door to reveal the lovely pale teenager with purple highlights in her dark brunette hair. Jade looked at him with a bored expression with her arms crossed under her chest.

He returned with a questioning expression. "Jade? Hi?"

The dark brunette slid passed him and entered the apartment.

Freddie frowned and shut the door behind her. "Come on in," he sarcastically welcomed the screenwriter.

The purple streaked hair girl rolled her eyes as she turned then asked with an impatient tone, "Did Tori pass on my message?"

He raised an eyebrow and answered, "Yeah, at breakfast, but I'm kind of busy Jade."

She took a step in front of him and gave him a disinterested expression. "Don't care. I want to know everything about Sam Puckett. I do my research."

Freddie returned her expression with an annoyed frown then answered with a slightly impatient tone, "Jade, I already told Cat what she needs to do: kick Sam out. I don't know what else I can tell you, so… _get out_. I'm busy and you don't own my time."

Jade softly furled her brow for her eyebrows to point down to her nose as she was quite surprise at him basically talking back to her. She quickly realized that he wasn't the same easy going guy that she had met a year and a half ago.

She snorted out a breath and pulled her arms tighter to herself, undeterred from him giving her an attitude. "Can you tell me more or go into some details about her?" She softly mocked, "Is it really as bad as you said it was or are you just exaggerating?"

He took a step forward and looked her straight in the eyes. He smirked at her, but there was no friendliness to it. "I'll put it this way: one time I got so fed up with her treatment of me that I had to talk myself out of taking a butcher knife and gutting her."

The intensity in his eyes and the sheer coldness of his voice caused her to subconsciously take a step back. She retorted with less than a confident voice, "All that might mean is that you're a psycho who can't deal with anger."

Freddie softly retorted with a smirk, "This coming from the girl that I hear is obsessed with scissors, makes videos talking about the things she hates and bragged that she enjoys being angry and can't understand why others don't."

The pale teenager frowned at the shot, but grudgingly admitted, "Point."

He let out a soft chuckle at apparently winning the verbal match.

She glanced around the apartment and idly commented to possibly slip around the wall he was putting up with a change in topic, "Where's Tori?"

He blew out a breath and decided that he could spend another minute or so humoring the girl. "We just finished breakfast and she went out grocery shopping while I'm out doing my errand. We never got around it yesterday before meeting up with you."

She nodded her head then questioned, "Why are you so eager to brush me off? Why such the rush?"

He snorted out a breath and answered seeing there was no real point in not telling her, "I need to go car shopping and I'm renting for the moment. I'd like to get my own wheels as soon as possible and turn what I'm driving back in. I'm on a budget and I don't have a lot of time."

She softly smirked as a thought occurred to her then offered, "I might be able to help you with that… if you're willing to talk?"

He softly smiled and turned to his right enough to grab the door handle then opened the door. He softly replied with finality to his voice, "No thanks. I really have to go Jade."

She licked her lips and let out a soft breath. She realized that she wasn't going to bully him into telling her what she wanted to know, not after what she learned last night and she really didn't want to do such a thing to him. She asked with a calm voice, "Please Freddie. Cat's my friend and I need to know everything I can about Sam so I can look out for Cat."

The brown eyed boy studied the blue eye girl for a few moments and apparently found something in the gaze. He relented with a tired voice, "Fine… let's go. You _drive_, I'll _talk_."

The pale girl smirked, believing that she got her way.

* * *

Freddie enjoyed the ride in the nice and comfortable car. He ruefully thought on the fact that he wouldn't be able to purchase anything as nice as this vehicle, well at least for the moment as to not tip off his real financial status at the moment.

Jade bluntly brought up, "So Sam…"

He snorted out a laugh at how simply mentioning the girl's name could break the peace. He tried to answer in a careless manner, "Sam…"

"Sam… as in your friend and ex-girlfriend…"

"I told you why I got in it." He slightly frowned. "I regret bowing to peer-pressure and my desperation in wanting to be with a girl after all the times I've been shot down as if somehow I'm cursed. She was emotionally safe as a girlfriend in that I knew what I was getting into. I was a little safer physically as she avoid hitting my face." He looked out the passenger window and commented, "I did a lot of things during those three weeks that I'm not proud of."

The blue highlighted girl rolled her eyes as she responded with a slightly sarcastic remark, "A guy taking responsibility for what he did in a relationship and not putting it all on the girl?"

Freddie slightly nodded his head to the side while answering, "Sam has a laundry list of problems and faults, but I did my bad too in return—not as bad because I never hit her, but I gave her some grief I usually don't." He looked to her and finished with a hint of concern slipping into his voice, "But you sound like you're speaking from personal experience?"

Jade couldn't prevent the frown from forming on her face or get rid of it before Freddie noticed. "Never mind, we're talking about Sam."

The former tech-producer studied the girl's profile and instantly recognized that he had hit a nerve and she was trying to cover it. He had no interest in pushing on a matter that obviously was sensitive to her, so he continued, "Okay, but you're going to roll your eyes and call me a bullchizzer with what I have to tell you."

The car pulled to stop at an intersection and gave Jade the opportunity to study his expression for a few moments then answered with a serious tone, "No."

"Okay… Sam is a juvenile delinquent—and has the juvie records to prove it—who thinks she should always get her way and never suffer for it. She hates people, especially me, but recently she's been putting up what I think is an act of civility. I'm just guessing here, but I think it got to the point that even Carly couldn't or wouldn't cover for her or bail her out of anymore trouble. Maybe she just wasn't willing to pay for Sam's bail anymore; I don't know."

Jade quietly listened as she slowly accelerated at the signal of the green light.

Freddie looked back out his passenger window and continued, "You push her buttons and she will come at you like an animal. Ask Gibby, he came back on crutches when he had admitted to her that he told my mother we were dating. When we took her to the Canadian Fat Cake factory as a treat for her not getting into any kind of trouble for a whole ten days, she kneed Gibby in the stomach and dropped him to the floor because he was going to get the first taste of a freshly made cake. She will not hesitate to use violence to get her way."

"If she's so violent, why did Carly keep her around? Why did you stay around so long?"

"Because she would never touch Carly. She'd protect her because Carly was her friend and probably was the only one in this world that loved her at the time. Why did I stay? I was thirteen and in love with Carly, so when iCarly started, it was the perfect excuse to be around her, but Sam was part of the deal. At first it wasn't any big deal. She wasn't anywhere near as bad when we started. She was just annoying, but it eventually wore me down with no one caring what she did to me. I got use to it… at one point I thought it would be abnormal if Sam didn't make my life miserable."

He took a breath then continued, "Then she slowly started physically hurting me… and no one thought it was a big deal so… not much I could do about it, so I just accepted that it was a part of my life."

"So over the course of years you became her bitch?"

The brown eyed boy frowned, but was forced to admit, "Yes, I was her bitch."

The blue eyed girl deeply frowned and gripped the steering wheel so tight that if possible, her already pale knuckles became even whiter. She commented with a cold and soft voice, "So now that Carly's not here and she doesn't have you to push around, she could turn on Cat to play with and have no one to at least attempt to rein her in?"

"It's a possibility, because once she cut back from hurting me as much—she never stopped—while we together, she turned on Gibby. That's the reason he actually told my mother: to force us to break up so Sam could turn her wrath back on me and away from him." He snorted out in disgust, "Some friend I had there."

Jade gritted her teeth for a moment then spoke with a surprisingly calm voice, "It looks like Sam and I are going to have to come to an understanding."

"Be careful with her. I'm not kidding with what I said at dinner last night: she has superhuman strength."

"Really?"

"She can easily beat me in arm wrestling and throw me over her shoulder and carry me."

She passed him a quick glance and raised her pierced eyebrow. She saw the look in his eyes then answered with mild disbelief, "You're not kidding?"

"Nope."

She turned her attention back to the road and answered, "Doesn't matter, fighting is not usually my first option. I just have ways to make people be very sorry for a long time."

The former tech-producer nodded his head then looked at the front windshield. He flicked his brow up and let out a soft laugh, "On the other hand, Sam could always look at Cat as a replacement for Carly and wouldn't physically hurt her… she'd actually be pretty safe with Sam willing to break anyone that would hurt her."

Jade wasn't sure how to take that possibility for a moment. Of course it would easily relieve her worry over Cat's safety, but then it raised the possibility that Sam would replace her as Cat's friend (Tori had already done that enough over the years to Jade's personal, but never voiced displeasure). She idly asked, "What about hurting her in a non-physically way?"

"That's out of childishness, not malice like when she sabotaged Carly's chances with this guy named Adam during our last WebiCon. She's not one to think things out."

Just as she pulled the vehicle to their destination, Jade commented with a firm tone, "Either way, Sam and I are going to have a talk and she's going to see things my way."

Junky Car Salvage Yard  
Beverlywood, CA

Jade hated to ask her father for anything, but she figured under the circumstances warranted it. Fortunately she didn't have to actually ask her father for this favor and simply go to his boss.

Since Mister West was such a business professional and did everything foster that projected persona, it could be quite surprising that his boss looked anything but that way. Apparently going back to his blue collar background before becoming a successful businessman owning and running a small conglomerate, the man in his early sixties had a scruffy appearance with his beard and wearing a worn out baseball cap on his head.

Also apparently that background gave him the excuse to personally lead a pair through the yard instead of having any number of underlings do it.

Mister Singer smiled as he led the pair through the yard to a potential vehicle. They stopped in front of the vehicle that had seen better days. It was a nineteen sixty nine Dodge Charger and on the outside, it wasn't much of a vehicle. The body paint was a faded black with various spots where the paint had chipped away and thus leaving spots for rust to form. The driver's side door had been replaced at some point as it was a dark blue that stood up against the faded body. It was also missing two hubcaps from what Freddie could see from the angle he was viewing. However, as bad as it looked cosmetically, the body looked to be in fine shape at first glance.

He laughed, "I know she's not much to look at, but she runs fine and doesn't have any body damage."

Freddie cautiously asked as he walked around the vehicle, "It really runs?"

"She runs… not the best, but she's in your price range and will get you from point A to point B," he explained with a motion of his hand to the vehicle. "It really is all cosmetic. She has absolutely no structural problems and once you put in some love and care into her, she'll shine up real nice for you."

Jade offered, "Beck's good with cars. I'm sure he'll help you out."

He cracked a soft smile. "Obligating your boyfriend to do something?"

She gave him a coy expression. "I can be very persuasive."

Freddie snorted out a laugh, "I bet you are."

He shook his head. "It may be cheap, but how much would I have to put into at the end of the day."

"Only parts—when you can find them—if you and her boyfriend can do the work."

He glanced back at the pale teenager and she gave him a slight smirk. He looked back to the scruffy gentleman and with less than an enthusiastic voice, "So what kind of price am I looking at?"

Nozu

About time they had worked out the deal and crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's, it was about lunch time, so Jade decided to take the muscular teenager to one of, if not her favorite restaurant. Whether she was just being nice for the company or just didn't want to appear to be rude with blowing him off to go eat was an open debate.

Freddie hesitantly ate on the food. He knew about Carly's love for sushi, but couldn't understand her appreciation of eating raw food. He knew his mother would have a fit for eating something not brought to a proper temperate to kill any germs other than raw fruits and vegetables.

He commented between poking of his food, "I appreciate the help with the car. I really didn't want to have to dip too far into my savings."

The dark brunette paused for a moment in seeing his genuine appreciation then shrugged a shoulder while looking at her food to idly comment, "It's cool. You told me what I wanted to know, so I helped you get a running car for a good deal."

Freddie cracked a soft smile at seeing how she was trying to just act like it wasn't a big deal, but years with Sam honed the ability to see through such an act. However, he chose not to comment and let her have her way.

"Speaking of savings, how are you going to UCLA? I know it's not cheap for me and I live here, so your out-of-state tuition must be killer."

He snorted out in disgust, "You're right. I'm paying double what you're paying, but I got a free ride from the Pear Company paying for it."

"How did you do that? You win some scholarship or something?"

"Something—it's part of a licensing agreement I have with them."

Jade softly knotted her brow as she asked, "Over what?"

"I invented a way to film and display three-D over non-three-D displays and without the need of three-D glasses. It has some bugs to work out so it doesn't mess up people's vision and they're going to try to do that… on the bright side, the screw up fixed my mother's therapist's daughter's eyes. Giving sight to the blind… it took a while to realize how profound that was."

She looked on him in surprise as even she was impressed with such an accomplishment. Her jaw slacked for a moment before uttering, "Wow… that's impressive."

He cracked a soft smile and nodded his head as he answered, "Thanks."

The pair turned back to their respective meals and ate in comfortable silence.

Freddie spoke up a few minutes later, "What's going on between you and Tori? What's the deal between you two? Really?"

Jade finished sipping a spoonful of soup then looked to him with slightly pursed her lips.

He raised an eyebrow and teased, "I've noticed during my visit last year and yesterday afternoon while we hung out before going to Cat's that there's a bit of tension between you two. You seem to tolerate her… like Sam did with me in the early years, but you're far better at it."

She remained silent as she studied his face.

He tried again, "I told you what you wanted to know."

She did not soften with her expression as she responded with a flat voice, "And I got you a great deal on a car; we're even."

He raised an eyebrow and softly challenged, "Oh… so it's going to be like that?"

She snorted out an irritated breath while softly rolling her eyes. "Look, I'm not one of Tori's cheerleaders, but I can be still be civil."

"I didn't say anything about cheerleading just that I noticed that for friends, there can be some real tension between you."

"We're not friends… we're kinda friends."

A dawn of realization appeared on his face. "So she's your frenemy?"

"I wouldn't necessarily go that far,"

"Okay… then why just kinda?" Before she could answer, an explanation came to mind. "Don't tell me it's as silly as jealousy? What do you have to be jealous about with Tori? This isn't about the PMAs is it?"

She softly snapped, "I'm _not_ jealous of Tori."

"Then what is it?"

She took several calming breaths as gave him a cold stare.

He raised a hand and calmly verbally took a step back, "Fine, if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."

She rolled her eyes and answered, not willing to let him just speculate, "It's just annoying how people make sure that everything goes her way and everyone just loves her on the spot."

Freddie snorted out a laugh, "Kind of sounds like how life goes for Sam though she doesn't deserve it, but… you're going to blame Tori for what other people do? That's kind of childish…"

She snapped her head to look at him and whispered, "Watch it."

"Or what?" he countered with a curt tone and an equally challenging stare.

They maintained the potential staring contest until Freddie spoke up, "I'm just saying if you're going to get upset over it, get mad at the people responsible, not Tori." He blew out a breath and turned his gaze down to his food. "I've been overlooked plenty of times, but I didn't blame Carly or Sam for it… okay, I was annoyed that they wouldn't support and really acknowledge my importance in the show, but I was not jealous of their popularity."

"You're just advocating that because you think Tori's hot," she retorted from Sam's revelation at dinner.

He slightly leaned towards her to meet her eyes and countered, "You're hot too, so how does that explanation work?"

She frowned with a slight knotting of her brow then countered to hang on to her point, "Which one of us do you think is prettier?" She suddenly recalled the question the tween girl had asked Beck months ago at the pet emergency room she had found him and Tori after tracking them down most of the night on their 'opposite date'. Beck fumble dodged the question whether than having to answer it, something that she had never admitted bothering her. If Freddie answered Tori or refused to answer then it would demolish his retort and prove her right.

Freddie slightly frowned then answered without hesitation, "Assuming you didn't mean between _us_, which I think you're far better looking than I am, but Tori then I choose C: All the Above."

The pale girl knotted her brow tighter in annoyance as it looked like his was dodging her question, but he turned and started poking at his food again as he continued in a tone that suggested he was mildly annoyed with her question, "How do you compare the beauty of a red rose to that of a gazania…" He paused then looked back to meet her bluish/green eyes and finished with a whisper, "…to a white lily?"

Jade bit her tongue as the metaphor for each of them, Cat, Tori and her, didn't go over her head and he just stared back and held his gaze with her.

"You can't… they're all beautiful," he answered his own question with the same hushed tone then turned back to try to finish his meal.

She looked down at her soup and took several soft breaths before she slid the bowl of soup slightly to him as an offering. She gave him a coy smile and commented, "It's good soup."

He raised a corner of his mouth to her then motioned for a waiter so he could ask for a spoon.

Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA

Tori pulled her car into the parking spot after grocery shopping and swinging back home to check on the house and picking up a few more things while she was there, such as her Wii. She'd hope to get in some game time in between classes, homework and hopefully getting serious with her album. She also hoped that Freddie would enjoy some gaming for the short time they shared the apartment.

She opened the backseat door and started pulling out a few plastic bags out of the backseat when she heard the sound of a muscle car. She pulled out of the back and looked over her shoulder, subconsciously expecting Beck's GTO. She was quite surprised as she saw a beat up Charger pull into the parking spot a few slots down with Jade's car driving around to park in the visitor's parking.

Freddie turned off the ignition then exited the car. He smiled to a surprised looking Tori then laughed out as he approached her, "Hey."

"Hey," she answered with a hesitant tone. She motioned to the Charger and questioned, "What is that?"

He glanced over his shoulder then looked to her and answered with a soft laugh, "That is my car. What turned into going car shopping turned into _us_ going car shopping."

"Oh?" the brunette hesitantly questioned.

Freddie took several bags from Tori then answered, "Jade really wanted to talk about Sam and I really needed to go car shopping, so…"

Jade picked up as she walked up behind Freddie, "So we both got what we wanted."

Tori did everything she could to suppress a frown from the ambiguous statement.

The pale girl continued to smile and commented, "I'll get Beck to look over it this weekend. See if he can really make it roar."

He gave a slight nod of his head and thankfully responded, "I appreciate it."

Tori grabbed one more grocery bag then offered it to Jade, hoping she would take it.

Jade looked to her as if seriously questioning she take a bag, but after a moment of facial pleading, she took the bag.

Tori smiled and turned back to the backseat and grabbed a duffel bag that continued her Wii and games. As she pulled the shoulder strap over her shoulder and started leading the way to the apartment. The trio quickly cut through the apartment lobby and up the stairs. Since her hands were the most free, Tori opened the door for them and was the first to enter.

Tori sat the duffel bag on the couch as Freddie sat the paper bags on the small dinning room table and the kitchen counter. The brunette looked to Freddie and asked, "Where did you get it?"

The blue streaked hair girl finished setting the bag on the table and answered, "We got it from the salvage yard that my dad's boss owns."

"Where you got that car for us to smash up, but instead it was Festus'?"

Jade spat out in disgust, "Yeah… I should have taken that golf club and broke his legs for the Yerba thing."

Tori stopped in her tracks just before they entered the building and snapped around to admonish her, "Jade!"

Freddie walked back to the girls and asked with a concerned tone, "Yerba? That 'vacation' you went on?"

"Yeah," Jade whispered out in disgust.

Tori curiously asked, "How did you know?"

"Carly found out from Cat. They kept in touch apparently. Love of red velvet cupcakes I think." He laughed out, "That's how she found out about their dictatorship. Carly even commented in one broadcast to tell him to chill." Freddie snorted out, "You heard he got killed right? They say it was the rebels but then there were stories that it was US Special Forces… and Carly's dad was called away at the exact same time at his birthday to take care of a problem in another country. All very hushed, hushed."

Jade let out a dark laugh, "Good riddance."

Tori knotted her brow. "Jade? A little heartless."

Jade crossed her arms under her chest and frowned before verbally lashing out, "Tori, we were lucky to get out of there without the prison guards raping us. I'm glad he's dead and I hope Colonel Steven and the rest sent as many of those guards as they could to Hell on their way out."

Freddie's mouth became a thin line and his eyes shot open.

"Hey, I was in there the longest and in hindsight, it wasn't that bad in there."

The pale girl gave her a cold stare and whispered out with a colder tone, "The male guards let you strip down and change in private into that prison garb? They didn't do that for me, Cat and your sister. I remember one leering at me…" She crossed her arms under her chest and subconsciously let out a shiver as she recalled the memory.

Tori looked down shamefully as she had been given privacy for the two dimwitted guards that she exclusively dealt with during the ordeal.

Freddie instinctively wanted to comfort the blue streaked hair girl, so without thinking, he reached up and cradled an elbow.

She looked up to meet a supportive smile and tried to suppress a bashful response.

Tori suddenly felt like she was the odd one out until Jade spoke up with a false sense of urgency, "Well, I need to get going. I have another errand to run this afternoon."

Jade turned and started her way out of the apartment, but Freddie called out before she made it to the door, "Jade?"

She stopped and looked over her shoulder, "Yeah?"

Freddie nodded his head and gave her a bashful smile. "Thanks, I really appreciate today."

Jade let a playful smile on her face and answered, "You're welcome."

"We'll see you in class," Tori offered.

She gave a partial smile then left, pulling the door behind her shut.

Tori was subconsciously grateful that she was standing behind Freddie and that he couldn't see her frown. He turned and smiled to the lovely brunette while commented, "Let me help you put stuff away."

The pair went on about storing the various groceries in the cabinets, refrigerator and freezer. Tori was reaching to put something at a top cabinet as she curiously asked, "So what did Jade want? I doubt it was to just take you out car shopping,"

He placed a jug of milk in the refrigerator and answered, "No, she really did just want to know everything she could about Sam. She's trying to hide it, but she's really concerned about Cat after last night. I don't think I made her feel any better after our talk."

Tori softly bit her bottom lip then looked to him to whisper, "So you talked Jade?"

His mouth became a thin expression with his brow barely knotting at seeing the apparent hurt on Tori's face. He licked his lips as he realized what she meant. He cautiously answered, "I told her what she needed to know about Sam, not the… not all the baggage that I have from it. She said something about 'she does her research'."

Tori couldn't explain it, but she suddenly felt relieved with his answer then rolled her eyes as she recalled the dark brunette's statement when trying to prevent her from playing in Steamboat Suzy and doing her 'research' on her.

Freddie noticed the visible relief from the brunette as she turned her attention to put the cold food in the refrigerator. He delicately asked, "I'm going to ask a dumb question, so…"

The lovely girl turned and gave him a curious expression while questioning, "So?"

"Would it bother you if I talked to somebody about that who wasn't you?"

Tori quickly shook her head and looked away from him.

He softly nodded his head. "So the answer is yes."

The brunette snapped her head up and gave him a forced perplexed expression.

He gave her an apologetic expression as he continued, "I'm sorry, I'm not really use to someone really caring about my problems… it's… really going into unknown territory."

Now the slender brunette really did appear confused. "Okay, but I don't understand. Carly and Sam, well at least Carly was your friend, so how are you not use to it?"

He bowed his head and let out a chuckle, but it wasn't a humorous one, "I thought you were friends and I thought I could, but the last time I tried to be honest with Carly—other than tell her how I felt about her for years—it didn't work out so well."

"What do you mean?"

He softly shook his head then answered, "It was just before we met and since Sam let it out, I guess it doesn't hurt to tell you… I told Carly I thought you were—are—pretty—hot actually, I thought you're hot—when Sam first found a picture of you and Steven and you know what Carly did when I was honest?"

Tori had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she didn't want to know the answer…

"She slugged an orange at me then celebrated when I fell out of the stool."

…and she was right.

"It was a wakeup call for me; I realized that Carly was not someone to confine one's feelings to. I couldn't truly be honest with Carly without risk of being hurt and if I can't be honest with her, who can I be honest with? So I keep everything to myself."

Tori bowed her head and softly bit her bottom lip as she was really getting a true eye-opener with the girls she thought she knew and realized why he didn't really want to talk about last night: he was afraid she might hurt him.

She took several breaths then asked, hoping to turn the conversation away from those feelings he didn't want to share, "So, ah… you really do find me hot?"

He looked up and saw her playful eyes. They were warm and kind and directed at him and couldn't help but bring a soft smile to his face. He whispered, "I find you beautiful… like a gazania."

She bashfully looked away and whispered, "Thank you."

They stood there for a few moments in a surprisingly comfortable silence then Freddie suggested, "Let me put the rest of the groceries up."

"Thanks, because I have a surprise that I want to set up," she answered while she walked back to the couch and opened her duffel bag.

He walked around the kitchen counter and asked, "What's that?"

The brunette pulled out her Wii and laughed, "So how good a gamer are you?"

He laughed for a few moments then answered, "I'll finish putting up the groceries while you hook it up and then we'll see."

She laughed in return, happy for a new challenge.

* * *

The time was early evening as Tori sat on the couch watching television. She had showered and changed into a loose t-shirt and her dark Hollywood Arts sweatpants and put on her glasses. Freddie had practically worn her out… on the Wii sports games they had practically played all afternoon. She noticed that he particularly liked the swordplay in the second game and gave her a short fencing lesson from his extensive background on the subject. She immediately realized that she found something she enjoyed sharing with the former tech-producer.

She was so involved in watching her show that Freddie asking as he walked around the couch caught her by surprise, "What are we watching?"

She looked at him and saw that he had showered and changed into sleep wear with his form fitting t-shirt and loose pajama pants, "Oh, ah… Celebrities Underwater."

Freddie plopped down next to Tori (despite having plenty of room to sit on the other end of the short couch) and laughed, "I love this show."

Tori gave him a surprised and joyful look at finding someone that actually enjoyed watching the show. She eagerly asked, "You do?" She softly rolled her eyes as she commented, "I tried watching it with Jade one time, but she doesn't like it because no one ever drowns."

He let out an ironic laugh, "David Schwimmer almost did drown in one episode."

"I remember that one."

"Wait a minute," he laughed out while quickly jumping up from his seat and around the couch.

"Okay?" she questioned with a cute knotting of her brow.

She looked over her shoulder and behind the cattycorner of the couch to the kitchen to see what he was doing, but her view was blocked by the height of the kitchen counter. A moment later she heard the microwave start then the familiar sound of popcorn kernels popping.

A minute or so later, Freddie walked back around the couch with a bowl full of popcorn while Tori pulled her feet under her to sit cross-legged on the couch. He retook his seat cross-legged, but scooted closer to the point of their knees bumping and straddling a bowl of popcorn on their thighs. He smiled to her while she slightly bowed her head to hide her bashful smile.

He pointed out, "I noticed that you bought some popcorn while putting away the food."

She let out a soft giggle then the pair looked to the television, enjoyed the popcorn and enjoyed the rest of the night in each other's company while watching their shared favorite show.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter: had some good friendship Jedi and working on Teddie... and appearance of an old friend from the late sixties. I'd like to thank PD31 for the flower suggestion to represent Tori. Hopefully now the story will really start picking up plot-wise and I can start picking this back up on a weekly basis. Thanks again for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello my dear readers. I'm sorry for the gap in updates to this story. Hopefully my time will start to free up after next week to post more often.

Agent-M-0167: Thanks. I see Teddie as an ideal form of Creddie, that of a boy next door getting with the girl next door. They are actually the relatively normal ones of the shared universe, so I think they would really get along toether.

I see the Charger as one of those fixed things that will always find a way to appear in my stories since they are all part of a greater multiverse. It's like a TARDIS in many ways, but probably with a Flux Capacitor.

I'm looking at the potential friendship between Jade and Freddie as what I think Dan had in mind for Sam and Freddie, but failed miserably at. It would be nice to actually write Freddie and Beck becoming friends instead of usually writing them pretty antagonistic to one another.

Mister Singer probably would be able to get you parts to a '67 Impala.

pbow: You are correct that the Tori spelling with an 'I' is usually reserved for females, but I have found males with that spelling, plus I think it is an acceptable stretch of disbelief to get me the initial setup. The one that typed it in may have not given it a second thought or it was a cupid to make sure they met :P

I wouldn't put it past Sam to sell him out, but then she'd have to deal with Cat and for the moment, she's living off of her just like she did the Shays and she's in a far more precarious position than she was in Seattle.

Jeremy Shane: Here is another chapter, sorry it took so long.

PD31: Tori, jealous of Jade? That would be a second time that's happened :D

Boris Yeltsin: Freddie and Jade interaction is one of those great wasted potentials from Dan. He was nerdy like Sinjin and Robbie she couldn't stand, but handsome and sweet like Beck and André who she likes. It would have been an interesting interaction, if Dan would have let his other writers write it as I thought they could write better when they had more freedom before S4 of iCarly and S2 of Victorious (Dan didn't start putting his name in the writing credits on a regular basis until then).

Fanfic-Reader-88: Three months of being a lone and reflecting on his life can surprisingly change a person, plus he has no reason to put up with her or Sam since life as he knew it was over and there wasn't anything left to preserve. Will there be a confrontation that violent between Jade and Sam if she finds out everything, I guess will see. Actually from what previews I've seen so far with Sam&Cat and how she's treating Cat, I think Jade would beat the mess out of her.

The Charger is a TARDIS.

How does Freddie soften up Jade? He'll give it right back to her, yet he'll listens to her and thinks she is pretty without making her feel inadequate next to other girls. That kind of sounds like the complete opposite of a certain guy she's know for a very long time and blew off those concerns.

It is strangely odd how two characters that Dan had no intention to ever really interact could have such things in common or how perhaps the respective actors' attractiveness to one another could translate on screen.

Challenge King: All points I'm glad you enjoyed as that was exactly what I was going for since Freddie is trying to start over and needs that support system… and a nice set of wheels. I hope you like this one.

If you get a chance, take a read of PD31's 'Here's to Us' update. He blames me for writing a particular scene in the story… I take full responsibility. Oh, and I here Victoria Justice will be guest starring in Big Time Rush this Thursday, June 6. Support Vic even if you don't care for the show. One last thing, I was messing up the dates in the last couple of chapters, so the ones now are the corrected ones (I was looking at a September _2011_ instead of 2012).

Rating: T Language

* * *

Chapter 6

Apartment 316  
Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA  
Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Tori took a deep breath as she stirred from her sleep. She rolled unto her back and stretched out on the apartment provided bed as she done the previous mornings. She smirked from still enjoying the fact that it was larger than the one at home. It was easily large enough for two, maybe three people… including a very muscular young man sleeping over in the next room. She took a sharp breath as her mind going into that direction, but quickly turned her thoughts elsewhere on a random subject like bunnies with pancakes on their heads.

Once her mind was settled, she sat up and blew out a breath in an attempt to get some of her bed hair out of face. She stretched her arms above her head as part of her usual morning routine, but stopped midway through with a groan when she felt the sudden soreness and stiffness in her shoulders and arms.

She frowned that quickly turned into a pout at the sensation and started rubbing her left shoulder. She whispered out in disgust, "Oh jamn it." She blew out a breath and threw the sheets off of her legs realizing her feeling sorry for herself in bed wasn't going to accomplish anything.

She exited her room and took the left into her bathroom for a few minutes then headed to the living room.

Freddie was sitting on the couch watching television and sipping on a cup of coffee. The lithe framed teenager immediately caught his attention with her presence and held back a smirk at seeing the lovely teenager with such bed hair. He playfully greeted her, "Morning."

Tori noticed his expression and the direction his eyes were focused. She slightly frowned at his apparent enjoyment of her morning appearance. She had quickly done her morning routine of using the bathroom and washing her face, but failed to have done anything to her hair other than brush it out of her face. A moment later a part of her realized that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing at such a handsome guy not being turned off at seeing what she looked like first thing in the morning.

She slightly tilted her head to the side and returned his smile. "Morning." She walked over to the couch and had a seat next to him, crossing her legs and resting her hands in her lap.

She disappointingly looked at him as he immediately sat his mug on the coffee table and got up from his seat to head for the kitchen. He spoke not a word as he got up and made his way to the kitchen.

She looked over her shoulder, but couldn't see him in the kitchen. She hoped that if she couldn't see him that he couldn't see her, so she sneakily bent forward and swiped his coffee mug off the table then brought the edge to her lips. She took a sip from the mug and instantly closed her eyes from the pleasant sensation of the warm liquid past her lips and tongue.

She cradled the cup and let a small smile play on her lips, but her momentary pleasure was interrupted by the sound of Freddie clearing his throat. She opened her eyes to see him wearing a boyish grin and holding another steaming mug in an offering gesture.

She guiltily looked down for a moment then muttered in an apologetic tone, "Sorry."

He reached for the mug she was holding, his strong hand gliding across her smooth skin and delicate hand, sending a slight shiver through her then pulled it away to trade it for the one he was holding.

She eagerly accepted the fresher coffee then mouthed, "Thank you."

He gave a polite nod and softly answered, "You're welcome." He retook his seat next to her while she took a sip from the coffee.

She sighed in pleasure as the coffee he had handed her tasted even better and waking her up. She steadily held her cup and closed her eyes so she could begin to nod her head from side to side around then rolled her shoulders back to try to relieve the tension and soreness. "I think you wore me out last night."

Freddie's eyes snapped open wide and looked at the disheveled brunette.

She quickly opened her eyes and blushed when she realized what she had said then hastily corrected herself, "I mean—I think, I think I over did it last night playing video games."

He cleared his throat then laughed, "Right… I thought I was just trying to keep up with the pace you were setting."

She lifted a corner of her mouth and answered, "It's okay. I guess I got caught up in the moment since Trina would have given up far sooner even if she's really competitive. It was just so much fun playing with someone that was enjoying it as much as I was."

"I guess next time we'll stretch out properly before we go toe-to-toe like that again. I don't want you to get hurt." He smirked as he finished, "What's the funny in beating you when that happens?"

She smiled in return and slightly nodded her head. "Good idea."

She closed her eyes and took another sip of coffee. She swallowed the wakening liquid then looked back to her roommate to curiously ask, "So what are you going to do today?"

He shifted in his seat and brought his right leg to rest on the couch then answered, "I was thinking that I would take my own tour of the campus."

She knotted her brow in a such a way that Freddie was finding it adorable. "But didn't you do that during orientation?"

He shook his head and answered, "I didn't go to orientation. Oh, I went through the placement testing for some of my general ed courses and meeting with my computer science advisor to get my classes planned out, but I didn't want to spend the extra money they were going to charge for it. I mean housing and paying for school was already taken care of, so I didn't need a talking to about that."

He let out a soft laugh and gave her a boyish smile as he answered, "Besides, I'd much prefer to do that at my own pace instead of with some monotone guide and surrounded by dozens of other students. I don't want to be antisocial, but I want make sure I know exactly where my classes are for Thursday instead just knowing which building is which. The last thing I need is to be late to my first class of the day."

Tori's smile brightened as she complimented, "That's not such a bad idea." She smirked as a thought came to mind. "If you don't want to be antisocial, you wouldn't mind some company, right?"

He slightly leaned towards her and asked, "I guess it would all depend on the company."

The brunette let out a soft laugh seeing at his teasing of her then asked, "So when do you want to head out?"

"I was thinking as soon as we can get ready before it gets too late in the morning. We can pick up breakfast on our way and get back to beat the lunch traffic."

She titled her chin up and gave him a big closed mouth grin. "I like that. We can come back, have lunch then check out all the amenities that we have here." She smirked and pointed a finger at him. "I hear we have a pool and a sauna."

Freddie raised an eyebrow and playfully questioned, "A sauna? I've never been in one of those."

"Then that's something we have to try at some point." She quickly shut her mouth shut as she realized the second goof she said this morning, "I mean, obviously not at the same time, but you know… after stressful week it might be nice."

He let out a laugh and slightly nodded his head. "Right."

Tori looked back to her mug, in the hopes of taking refuge in sipping her coffee and not saying anything else ridiculous in front of him. The pair turned to watch television as Freddie had been watching the morning news.

The lovely brunette finished her coffee and sat the mug down on the table then relaxed back in her seat just to enjoy the quiet company with Freddie.

The peaceful moment was short lived however as the tension of her muscles were becoming too distracting. She stretched her arms up above her head to try to relieve the tension, the act lifting the hem of her small night T-shirt and exposing her midriff and bellybutton.

He glanced away and tried to focus his attention on the television as to not stare at her toned abdomen and bellybutton, but the news of the annual meeting UN General Assembly didn't seem all that interesting compared to the potential sight of sitting next to just a lovely and loving girl.

She gritted her teeth in frustration from the continued soreness. She dropped her arms back to her side, giving up on trying to stretch properly with feeling so sore. She muttered, "Too bad Rex isn't here; I could really use the massage to loosen the muscles."

Freddie pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes on the brunette. He questioned in a tone that suggested that he was also questioning himself in even asking the question, "Rex? The puppet?"

She let out an embarrassed laugh, "We humor Robbie far too much, but when I was cramming for an exam so I could opt out of a class last year, he gave a surprisingly good massage of my neck. He even got a kink out of it."

He nervously cleared his throat then hesitantly offered, "Since I'm partially responsible, but I'm no puppet…"

She turned to offer her back to him.

He placed his hands on her shoulders then softly started kneading her shoulders.

She closed her eyes and lolled her head to the right side and let out a sigh from the relaxation he was already bring to her sore muscles.

The brown eyed teenager held back a smirk, quite pleased with himself that he was at least adequate so far. He started moving his hands towards each crook of her neck and slightly increased the pressure of his fingers. He finally reached to her neck and tenderly pressed his thumbs under the base of her neck as his fingers worked each side of her neck around her pulse point.

She lolled her head backwards and let out another sigh, really appreciating the contact from his fingertips and soft touch that was such a contrast to his obviously strong hands. She couldn't help but think back to a comment Jade had made to Beck's friend Moose the time he visited, _'You must destroy gloves'_ and Tori quickly realized that Freddie could probably do the same thing. She sighed out with a nearly husky voice, "Oh my God Freddie, you're good at this."

He put on awkward smile that he was thankful that she couldn't see then answered with a forced casualness, "I guess I'm just a natural… and just remembering where I hurt the most when I sometimes over do it at the gym."

The pair sat there for a few more minutes with Freddie continuing his ministrations. He figured that he had loosened her muscles enough for them to stop bothering her, but he didn't say anything and left the decision to stop up to the brunette.

Tori on the other hand was to caught up in the relaxing sensation and really was in no hurry to stop him especially with the butterfly sensations in her stomach and lower abdomen, but the more rational side of her mind finally forced her to speak up before things could get awkward between them as she had nearly done twice so far this morning. She slightly leaned forward and whispered, "Thanks Freddie."

He instantly got the message and pulled his hands away. He politely replied, "You're welcome."

She looked over her left shoulder to look at Freddie and commented, "I'm going to go take a shower and see if the hot water can help relax me."

He let out a soft laugh, "Okay. I need to hit the shower myself. I think I smell a little funky from my morning workout. You wouldn't want to spend the day with a stinky Freddie."

Tori turned her head back and looked down at her lap so she wouldn't see her expression as she didn't actually mind the manly musk that she had noticed since taking a seat next to him. She let out a nervous laugh to cover herself as she stood up. "I'll see you in a little bit."

"Okay," he reflexively answered while she turned to head back to her room.

About forty minutes later, the pair was outside of their apartment and walking to Tori's car as she offered to drive today. She didn't see the point of putting any more mileage on Freddie's car until he really had it checked out and perhaps started replacing some parts.

As soon as they reached her car, Freddie took a good look at Tori's vehicle: a dark blue 2012 Nissan Maxima. He laughed out, "I haven't got a chance to mention this, but you have a pretty nice car. Was it a graduation present?"

She stopped at the driver's side door and answered, "Actually it was because I took Trina with me to Yerba. I didn't want to take her, but my dad bribed me."

He gave her another confused expression. "Why did he try to bribe you?" He laughed off, "Did he really not want Trina around?"

She regretfully admitted with her head bowed down as she couldn't meet his eyes, "I'm the favorite child."

Freddie put on a guarded expression, not exactly sure how he should react as she sounded so ashamed with that being the truth.

"Well, I suggest when we get back that you park this in the underground parking. I think it'll be safer."

She tilted her head slightly to the side and teased him, "You're just so full of good ideas this morning aren't you?"

He patted the roof of her car and joked, "I'm just glad someone's listening to them for a change."

The pair's respective smiles slightly faded as each realized that his comment wasn't exactly funny from what she had learned over the last few days.

Tori forced a cheerful expression on her face and called out, "Okay, breakfast?"

Humanities Building, UCLA  
Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The pair had shared a quick breakfast at one of the many food establishments on campus then started on their self-guided tour around campus. The started with a building that they would fortunately be sharing a class together and casually walked through the various hallways of the building, lazily exploring while passing the random student or potential professor. They eventually made their way up to the third floor and started looking for the classroom where they would be sharing a literature class.

Tori was the first one to spot the room and stopped at the door labeled 350. The lights were off, but fortunately the room had windows and enough light shined into the room so she could peak into the classroom through the rectangular window. She let out a relieved breath at seeing that it didn't look much different than a usual classroom. She feared one of those huge auditorium sized classrooms where there would be hundreds of students and she would just be a faceless member. She knew she would have at least one or two classes like that, but was grateful that one would be a little more intimate.

He playfully asked, "You okay?"

She rolled her eyes then answered, "Okay, I'm nervous; it's a big campus and a lot of students."

"It certainly different from high school…" He laughed and shrugged a shoulder, "You got me."

She gave him a thankful smile then looped her arm through his arm. "Yeah, I have you."

Schoenberg Music Building, UCLA

The pair crossed Portola Plaza road to walk over to take a quick peak at the music building for the class that Tori was going to share with Jade and Cat. She had failed to let go of his arm during their trek over or their exploration of the building. He had stolen a few confused glances at her entwined arm with his arm, but eventually just accepted it.

As they finished exploring one of the music rooms, a voice called out from behind the pair, "Tori? Tori Vega?"

The pair turned to the sound of the voice (without Tori actually letting go of Freddie's arm) and brunette eyes widened as she tried to recognize the blonde that passed a resemblance to Tara Ganz from Karaoke Dokie.

The girl placed a hand on her upper chest and stated, "I'm Lindsey; we went to Hollywood Arts together. I graduated last year."

Tori instantly placed her as the girl her sister said was her friend but knew didn't actually like her. However, Tori put on a bright smile and answered, "Lindsey, hey. How are you?"

"I'm great, but…" The blonde smiled to Freddie and gave him a flirtatious laugh, "You look like you're doing better though."

The brunette's brow shot up and eyes widened then let out a quick laugh to correct what the blonde was thinking, "Oh, Freddie's not my boyfriend."

Freddie shook his head. "We're not together."

"Oh?" Lindsey spoke with her eyes immediately lightening up even if she wasn't entirely convinced about the veracity of the statement with Tori holding her arm around Freddie. "So then who's your _friend_?"

Tori's smile faltered at hearing the tone she had used to describe the former tech-producer as a piece of her disagreed with the description. She cleared her throat then answered with the faintest of hesitation, "Oh? This is Freddie."

The former tech-producer spoke up with a polite wave of his hand, "Freddie Benson."

The blonde studied him for a moment then questioned, "Freddie Benson? As from iCarly?"

He let out a chuckle while rocking for a second on his heels and toes. "One in the same."

"So, what are you doing here?" She looked to Tori to finished, "And how do you know the famous Freddie Benson?"

The former Seattleite answered, "I enrolled into the computer engineering program and we're taking the morning to see where are classes are going to be."

Tori picked up, "We met back in March of last year at Kenan's party…"

"That's right, you sang together. That was a blast of a party, but happened with Steven? I heard you two were going pretty strong."

The younger Vega sister frowned and hesitantly answered, "It didn't work out. He wasn't… he was like Ryder Daniels."

The blonde sucked in a breath through her teeth at the mentioning of her ex-boyfriend. "Sorry to hear that."

"Me too."

Lindsey clapped her hands together and picked up with a happier tone, "Well I'm glad I bumped into you, so I can go ahead and tell you. Friday night, we Hollywood Arts Alumni here are having a party to welcome all the incoming freshman alumni to campus. It'll give us a chance to re-network with one another and let'em know they have support while they're here. Back at Hollywood Arts they were going to tweet it out over the Slap in the hopes of getting the news out. You still follow TheSlap through TweetFlash?"

Tori nodded her head, "Yeah, I do."

"Great, it's a way to keep in touch." She smiled as she looked to Freddie then commented, "You're welcome to bring a guest."

Tori only needed a moment to accept for the chance to hang with some fellow students from HA. "Thanks, it'll be nice to catch up with some people… and make us feel welcomed." She flicked her eyebrows up and let out an awkward laugh, "College… can be very scary especially with being on such a big campus."

Lindsey gave her a reassuring smile and wrapped an arm around Tori's shoulders. "Don't worry, we Hollywood Artsies stick together." She pulled back a moment later and happily finished, "Well I'll DM you the details later. I got to go meet up with one of my professors, so I'll see you at the party."

Tori waved her at Lindsey's retreating form while He raised an eyebrow and gave her a boyish grin while questioning her, "So I'm your guest?"

She gave him a slight pout while answering him, "What? I'm just going to leave you at home?"

He let out a laugh then led them towards the exit.

They passed by the inverted fountain and took a few minutes to admire it before continuing on their the half circle track from the Humanities Building, Schoenberg then finally to Boelter Hall so Freddie could check out his department that he'd be spending most of his time for the next four years.

They headed up to the third floor for Freddie to take a quick peak at the department and facilities. He knew how boring this part of the tour could be, but was happy that Tori was humoring him. He doubted that Carly would have done such a thing if she was here instead of Italy.

A part of him was happy that the buildings that they would be spending so much time were relatively close together and it would be easy to drop in on one another (since he would be moving out), assuming that Tori would want to do such a thing as he understood that computer engineering was nowhere near as exciting as her music.

Tori politely waited while he was able to look around like a kid in a candy store. However, he wasn't willing to test her patients (or wanting to keep such a lovely girl waiting), so he finished fairly quickly and she naturally slipped her arm back around his as if it was the natural thing to do between them.

The friends made their way down back to the first floor and exited the building. During their entire tour, Freddie had noticed the random guys they would pass almost leering at her in a fairly blatant manner and a few more guys were taking a little too long to look at Tori just as they left the building. If it wasn't for his presence, they would probably directly approach her and start trying the lamest pickup lines. He had no room to talk about lame pickup lines, but he was comforted in the fact that at least he was genuine in his attempts with the ladies.

He slipped his arm from her grip and momentarily drawing a frown from her that he didn't notice, but it quickly vanished as his hand slipped down to hold her hand. The next moment she allowed him to slip his fingers between hers so that they were laced together.

Freddie suggested, "We could stop by the Terrence Food Court and pick up lunch. We wouldn't have to worry about cooking and it is on our way back to your car."

"Great idea."

Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA  
Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The pair was able to quickly get their food and arrive back to the apartments before the lunch rush, but the brunette insisted that they take a few minutes to quickly tour the apartments' amenities even if it meant their lunch cooling.

They reached their apartment about fifteen minutes later after briefly checking out the pool and sauna.

Tori smirked as she took her seat at their dinning room table and commented, "Before the week's out, I'm hitting the pool or the sauna. One of the two."

Freddie laughed as he placed their food at the center of the table then took his seat across from her, "I can hit the exercise room when I don't feel like stopping by the university's gym or make a special trip out."

She leaned over and reached across the table and playfully picked at his muscular bicep. "You have to stay in shape to impress the ladies."

He shrugged his shoulder and answered, "I don't think I'll have much time for the ladies with studying."

She fired off without thinking, "Unless you're studying with me, Jade and Cat?" She nearly blushed when she realized what she had spoken.

He raised a finger and agreed to relieve the attention Tori was feeling, "You have a point."

She let out a laugh and the pair turned to their lunch.

RPX Records  
Hollywood, CA  
Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The thrown together roommates had one more day before classes started, so Tori wanted to take the opportunity to catch up with one more person before she got busy with classes. So that was the reason that the brunette was at RPX Records first thing in the morning trying to find her musical friend.

The pair was directed to a particular recording room and Tori called out from the door as she saw André sitting on a stool and drumming on his guitar while working on lyrics, "André!"

The songwriter looked up from his guitar and instantly put on a smile. "Tori!" He sat it down into the guitar stand and quickly got up from his seat to share a nearly knockdown hug from his eager friend.

The brunette pulled back and laughed, "It's great to see you."

"It's great to see you too college girl." He looked over her shoulder and surprised to see Freddie standing a few paces behind. "Freddie?"

The pair approached one another and André clasped his hand and pulled him into a one arm hug.

"Hey André. It looks like you're doing well 'about to be a major musical star'?"

He nodded along. "Yeah, but what are you doing here? Is Carly and Sam with you?"

"No—" He tilted his head to the side as he corrected, "Well Sam is in L.A., but I'm here because I'm going to school at UCLA and me and Tori kind of ran into each other as I was moving in."

The lovely brunette rolled her eyes and lazily commented, "That's one way to describe it."

The dreadlock wearing teenager gave them a questioning look and Freddie quickly offered, "I'm ah… Tori's roommate."

He furled his brow in an instant and asked with a perplexed tone, "Roommate?"

Tori embarrassingly answered, "It's a long story."

Freddie quickly rattled off, "She put Tori on the application and forgot to put her sex. Someone thought she was a guy and put us together in one of the apartments."

She rolled her eyes and lolled her head to the side. She let out a slightly sarcastic remark, "Okay, not so short."

"Wow, roommates. They don't have any place to move either one of you?"

The former Seattleite answered, "Not yet, so we're just waiting it out until something is free. In the meantime, we have to put up with each other."

Tori playfully punched his arm and countered, "He's exaggerating. We're getting along great. We have our own rooms and bathrooms and I've been treated to some good meals and company. He's been a better video game player than Trina, but don't tell her that."

André resisted the urge to comment on the time they had been roommates, but instead teased, "Careful there Tor, you might miss him when they find one of you a new place to live."

Her smile slightly faded from that idea, but she quickly covered by eagerly asking, "So how are you? We've been kind of out of touch these last few weeks."

He let out a charming laugh and answered, "I'm doing well. I've been busy trying to get my album done. It should be ready for a holiday release then I should be going on tour in the spring. Quincy's really been looking after me." He whispered under his breath, "And keeping Hope off my back. I think he likes me more than her."

Tori nearly shouted for joy, "That's fantastic! I can't wait to see one of your concerts."

"So how's your music coming? When are we going to see Tori Vega's debut album?"

The brunette nodded her head, but wasn't as eager to share, "I'm doing well. My songs are coming along and I'm hoping for the same thing, but maybe waiting to tour in the summer. I want to get my first year done so I don't have to worry about cutting into school."

He seemed oblivious to her hesitation. "Sounds great. Maybe we can duet a few times since I would be done by then?"

"I'd love that. Do you think Quincy would let you since I'm on a different label?"

He waved her off, "He'd be cool with it. He'd look it as a way to get me further noticed: singing with the PMA performer herself."

She joined him in a quick laugh before he offered, "Why don't I show you personal tour? I'm sure Quincy would love to see you."

Tori threw out her hands and laughed, "Why not? We're here to see you."

André laughed and took his friend by the arm to lead them out of the room and around the building. "I'm not sure if Rihanna is here today, but let's go see."

Tori excitedly asked, "Rihanna?!"

After about an hour of catching up (which wasn't really all that much), touring, meeting a few other artists (Rihanna was scheduled for tomorrow unfortunately) and a happy reunion with Quincy, the three were back in the room the pair had met up with André.

Tori thumbed over her shoulder and towards the door while commenting, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to run to the restroom then be right back."

The songsmith nodded his acknowledgment and she was off.

Freddie glanced to make sure she was out of sight and earshot then idly commented, "André, I was wondering something—it's just something I picked up when Jade and Beck were over for lunch on Sunday—that Mason was kind of being taking his sweet time in getting Tori's career going—do you think your boss would be interested in picking up Tori? He seemed pretty excited to see her."

André eagerly asked, but his voice soon waned, "Absolutely, but that's the problem, she's signed with Mason."

Freddie nodded his head to the side and softly laughed, "Maybe, but there is something I learned a long time ago from Spencer and his seventy two hours at law school: every contract has a loop-hole."

The songsmith nodded along, willing to trust Freddie's experience then asked, "Should I mention to Quincy that Tori could be interesting in going with him?"

"Not yet, I'm just thinking out loud. We'd have to talk to Tori again about it. She's afraid that Mason could not only fire her, but ruin any future career."

"I'd like to see him try if Tori signs up with RPX. Quincy plays hardball and he's not intimidated by _anyone_."

Freddie nodded along, feeling reassured by the answer.

Tori returned a few minutes later and began to politely excuse her and Freddie, "I think we need to get going. We didn't mean to interrupt you—I know we had to do that with the tour—and I don't think I ate enough of a breakfast."

Freddie restrained himself from telling her 'I told you so' from her eating such a skimpy breakfast.

"Okay, I'll you later or I'll call or video chat. I may just drop by and see the little nest you two have."

Tori lifted a corner of her mouth and slightly glared at him, but he knew she really didn't mean it. She pointed a finger at him, "Don't be a stranger André."

"I won't."

Tori turned and headed out the door, while Freddie was purposely a step behind.

André whispered to the muscular teenager, "I'll keep what you said in mind."

"Thanks André. It was good to see you again," he answered with a nod then quickly walked to catch up with Tori.

"Later."

Apartment 316  
Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA

The roommates arrived about a half an hour later and the pair grabbed a quick microwavable meal. After eating and relaxing separately in their rooms for about another hour, Tori peaked into Freddie's room in the hopes that he was up for a rematch with several of her sports games. Freddie didn't mind getting in another round of video games before the first day of college tomorrow. She made it a point this time to properly stretch while Freddie set up the game.

He volunteered to get the game ready as he wouldn't have to watch her stretch out while she was in a T-shirt and loose shorts. He was felt enough guilt subconsciously stealing glances at her from how well her shirt fit her, her behind and her toned legs. He debated a few times in his head if he was any better than the guys that had leered at her yesterday. Of course unknown to him, she was checking out his muscular form with how well he wore his athletic shirt.

Tori called out, "You ready?"

"Yep, all set."

He stood up and took his place beside her. "Okay, make sure you set a pace you're happy with. I might not have time in the morning to give you another massage."

She smirked at him as she wouldn't mind for a repeat occurrence.

After about an hour of playing (with Freddie edging out again for a win), Tori retired to have a shower. As inappropriate as it may have sounded in Freddie's head, he was glad that he was wearing lose fitting shorts at seeing her walk away since she had worked up quiet a sweet and her shirt and shorts were sticking to her.

While she was in the shower, he decided to his mind to a more productive endeavor and to treat her to an early dinner instead of some microwave instant meal.

Half an hour later, Tori stepped out of her room and into the living room after showering, drying and changing. She immediately saw to her left that Freddie had set out dinner for them at the dinning room table.

He smiled up to her and asked, "I hope you'll like my Spaghetti Tacos. That was some workout we had."

She beamed a smile to him. _He had made dinner for me._

The pair mostly ate in silence, but Tori didn't mind as she just enjoyed the company. She looked up several times and saw a playful smile on his lips as if he enjoyed just watching her eat. She was a little flattered then became a bit subconscious in her eating etiquette as she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of him.

Once they were done eating, Freddie laughed, "If you'll excuse me, I need a shower. I don't know how you put up with the smell."

She gave him a flirtatious smile, one that even she could acknowledge to herself, and answered, "Oh, you don't smell that bad."

He chuckled and stood up from his seat to head for his bedroom. She turned in her seat to watch him go. Her eyes nearly bugged out at seeing him pull off his athletic shirt over his head just before turning into his bathroom. She had to clench her jaw tight and swallowed as she saw his muscular and toned back. She turned back in her seat and had to take several calming breaths as she suddenly felt warm.

After Freddie took his shower, the roommates wasted the rest of the afternoon after making sure they had their materials ready for tomorrow and making a few family calls by relaxing in front of the television to catch a rerun of Celebrities Underwater and other shows they took turns in watching or surfing online with their respective laptops. At some point as they were watching television, she rested her head on his right shoulder and he apparently didn't mind.

After another smaller meal and a few more hours of just enjoying each other's company, the time was approaching ten that evening and the brunette lifted her head off of his shoulder once more and commented, "I'm going to go ahead to bed. Early morning an all."

Freddie softly smiled to the brunette and whispered, "Right, you have a goodnight. I'll keep the TV down."

She softly patted her hand on his shoulder and had to stop herself from placing a kiss on his cheek. "Goodnight Freddie."

He blew out a breath as from his position sitting on the couch his eye level was completely level with her rear.

As soon as she slipped into her room, he clicked off the television and headed to his room for bed.

Introduction to Study of Language  
UCLA  
Thursday, September 27, 2012

It was about fifteen minutes to eight A.M. and Tori was taking her seat among the throng of students for the Introduction to Study of Language class and the brunette was nearly freaking out with that many students in the room. She couldn't understand how she could possibly learn anything with that many students in the room. Her only reassurance was that Jade, Beck and Cat would be in the class with her and they signed up for the same discussion class as well.

Her nervousness was also lessened by the surprised presence of Freddie having a seat next to her. He hadn't signed up for the class but for a philosophy of science class in the same subgroup of classes that would meet up at the same time, but on Mondays and Wednesdays. So Freddie had gotten up when he could have easily slept in and slipped into a class that he expected no one would notice an extra student in a class of nearly three hundred and fifty.

Freddie leaned over to whisper, "You nervous?"

She turned her head to meet his eyes to answer, but hesitated when meeting them and from his lips so close to her own. She swallowed down her apprehension, hoping he would think she was just nervous about the class. "Do I look it?"

"I'll tell you a little secret."

Her eyes opened wider to the confession of wanting to tell a confession. "What's that?"

"I'm a little nervous too."

She put on a relieved smile and Freddie leaned away to straighten up in his seat. She continued, "You didn't have to get up this early and come with me. You could have slept in."

"You seemed nervous, I mean… there's like three hundred and fifty people in the class; it would be nice if you knew someone here."

She tried holding back a blush of being touched by the sentiment. "Jade, Beck and Cat was supposed to be here and we signed up for the discussion part."

Freddie smiled as he caught sight of Jade and Cat walking in together and by some miracle spotting them. He waved them over to make sure they had spotted them and the group of friends quickly made their way over.

Jade took a seat next to Freddie while Cat had a seat to Tori's left while Beck of course took a seat next to his girlfriend. Cat was happy to see Tori and gave her a sideward hug.

Since they had arrived a few minutes early, they took a few minutes to catch up with one another. Tori filled them in about meeting up with André and telling him how he was doing, which Jade already knew, but it was news to Cat. The brunette then turned to a bit of other news, "We were out on Tuesday doing our own personal tour of the campus and when we were stopping by Schoenberg, we ran into someone that graduated Hollywood Arts last year, Lindsey. She invited us to a party Friday night."

Cat spoke up, "Oh, I remember her from a few productions. She seemed really sweet."

Tori followed up, "Trina thought they were friends, but she doesn't like Trina."

Jade let out a chuckle, "I'm liking this girl already."

The lighter brunette cocked her head to the side and frowned at her 'friend'.

The pale girl continued, "But a college party already? You sure you want to go to one Vega?"

The brunette surprised her with a calm smile. "I've heard plenty of warnings from my dad, but it's okay. It's being thrown by former Hollywood Arts students to welcome us new graduates to campus."

"Alumni get together?" Beck asked for clarification.

"Exactly."

Beck smile as he leaned in front of Jade and answered, "Sounds like it could be fun. Catch up with some people that graduated last year."

Jade glanced to her side to Beck and muttered, "I guess."

The professor walked into class and gave them a surprisingly warm welcome and introduced his TAs that would help him with the class and the discussion classes. The professor seemed personable and went through some housekeeping with the class and what was expected then started on his first lecture.

About two hours later, the group exited from the language class and Freddie spoke up, "I'll meet up with everyone at Comparative literature at eleven?"

They quickly agreed and he went off to go to his first real class of the day while the others agreed to get a brunch as they wouldn't get done with their classes until about two without a break to eat lunch.

The group met back up at eleven and patiently sat through the comparative literature class. It was a far smaller class of less than thirty people and Tori felt far more relaxed. Their professor was a very lovely dark brunette in her early thirties and introduced herself as Doctor Queen. Several of the male students sat up straighter in their seats at seeing her. Jade held back a look of disgust as sheer immature reaction from the teenagers and the odd early twenty something year old. She had to outright bite her tongue as she noticed the professor hold a little too long a glance at Beck in her opinion then an equally long one at Freddie.

Jade was particularly happy when the nearly two hours were up as she had gotten tired of watching the professor making eyes at her guy and the former Seattleite. She passed a glance to Tori and noticed that she didn't seem her usual chipper self. It crossed her mind that her rival may have noticed the same look from the professor. The group, minus Freddie, went on to their one o'clock discussion group class from their morning language class.

The next hour flew by pretty quickly in the class and they seemed pretty confident that it would be a good class. The group of friends exited out of their discussion group in high spirits and meet up with Freddie waiting for them.

Tori smiled at seeing Freddie and couldn't help but think that he had been waiting specifically for her.

They exchanged quick greetings then Jade crossed her arms under her chest and offered Cat, "Do you need a ride back?"

The redhead happily answered, "Sam's going to pick me up."

Freddie slightly frowned as he asked before Jade could get it out, "Do you have a helmet?"

She laughed, "Yeah I have a pink one."

He glanced at her and noticed the particular absent of such a helmet attached to her book bag. He pointed out this obvious fact, "Where is it?"

"Oh, Sam has it. She keeps it for me when she's picking me up."

The pale girl shook her head and looked away just as a piercing voice caught their attention, "Little Red, you ready to go?"

The group turned to the sound of Sam's voice and Jade was the first to frown at her approach.

Sam slightly frowned when she spotted the others, but swallowed down her annoyance as even she had enough sense to not pick a fight with any of them at the moment. She really didn't want to upset Cat because she wouldn't hear the end of it for the rest of the night and besides, it was far too public. Seattle cops may have been spineless and she had trained them well, but they might decide to call campus police on her and if LAPD showed up, they'd gun her down when they realized that the taser wouldn't work on her.

Freddie spoke up, "You going to be careful, right Sam?"

Sam rolled her eyes and nearly snapped, "I'll drive safely Fredweird."

Tori frowned at the insult lobbed at her roommate and had finally lost patience with the girl. She was about to snap back, but Freddie spoke up, "For once take something seriously you blonde she-demon. If you want to become a smear on the road, that's your choice, but remember you have a passenger."

Sam directed a harsh glare at her ex.

The others felt awkward watching the exchange other than Jade with her equally directed cold stare at the blonde.

The blonde was tempted to throw another insult, but she held her tongue on that point. "Cat, you ready to go?"

"Yeah," she quickly answered and approached her roommate. She called out to her friends, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Tori raised her hand and called out, "Later Cat."

Jade turned to the brown eyed teenager and impatiently questioned, as if it was a judgment against him, "And you put up with her for how long?"

He kept his focus on the retreating forms of the unlikely roommates while he answered, "I was in love with Carly and that was why I put up with her then by the time I stopped, I was just used to it and I cared about her. I don't have any reason to put up with it now."

Jade rolled her eyes in disgust, passed Tori a quick glance then commented to Freddie as if she was lecturing a child, "When someone is mean to you, you don't be nice back to them. It's not how it works."

Tori immediately thought back to when her pale friend had said that to her in the Black Box Theater after she faked an eye injury during stage fighting. Beck rolled his eyes and was about to chide her, but Freddie kept his eyes on the retreating girls and spoke up without missing a beat, "I'm Christian, that's exactly how it works for us."

Jade pursed her lips into a thin line and felt a momentary bit of embarrassment. She would mock many things about people, but even she would not mock one's religious convictions.

He looked to the pale girl and asked in completely changing the topic, "We're heading back to the apartment for lunch; you want to come?"

Beck spoke up, "Jade and I already have plans, but how about we do that on Tuesday after class?"

Tori answered, "Sounds good."

The long haired actor rested his hand on the small of Jade's back and bid farewell, "Later."

Jade joined with a nod to the pair and the couple and pair separated to head on their separate ways.

Apartment 316  
Venice/Barry Apartments  
11811 Venice Boulevard  
Los Angeles, CA  
Thursday, September 27, 2012

Tori dropped in the couch seat with a big grin. She turned that grin to Freddie while he dropped his book bag in the cattycorner seat and sat on the armrest. She commented in a relieving tone, "It wasn't as overwhelming as I thought."

Freddie shrugged a shoulder as he retorted, "It's only the first day… and just after two thirty and we still have tomorrow to see how the rest of the week will go for us."

She slightly frowned at her roommate. "Are you trying to bring me down?"

He let out a soft chuckle, "Absolutely not. I just… want to keep things a little realistic, but… I think on the bright side, the first semester can be pretty light, relatively speaking in terms of classes. I mean if they can party every weekend and still pass their classes, I think we'll be fine."

"Hopefully you're right."

He smirked while standing up and offering, "I'm going to fix us some lunch then if you need some help studying, I think I took pretty good notes even in your morning class."

The brunette smiled at him, genuinely touched by his offer. "Thanks Freddie."

He shrugged a shoulder then commented, "What are roommates for?" He didn't wait for an answer as he turned and headed for the kitchen.

* * *

Author's Note: Wow, that was a longer chapter than expected, but I hope you enjoyed it. Hollywood Arts reunion party? I wonder how that will go. Oh, and in case you are wondering, that is the same Lindsey from PD31's 'A Place to Call Home' and it's prequel story. Hopefully the next update won't be too far off. Later.

Guest star Danielle Bisutti as Professor Katherine Queen


End file.
